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WJLLJAM L). lUJYCE. 



ALASKA 



AND 



THE PANAMA 
CANAL 

ILLUSTRATED 



By 

WILLIAM D. BOYCE 

Publisher of "The Saturday Blade," "Chicago Ledger. 

"The Farming Business," and the "Indiana 

Daily Times." 



RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 



Copyright, 1914 

BY 

W. D. BOYCE 



OEC 30 1914 



^ 



ICI.A393U03 



INTRODUCTION 

ALASKA and the Panama Canal Zone, one lying against 
the Arctic Ocean and the other in the tropics, one under- 
laid with perpetual ice and frost, and the other overlaid with 
perpetual verdure. These are among our most valuable out- 
lying possessions. With these registering the present limits 
of our country north and south, and with the Philippines in 
the Orient and Porto Rico in the Atlantic marking our boun- 
daries east and west, the commanding magnitude of our nation 
is made plain. 

For Alaska we paid Russia $7,200,000, for the Panama 
Canal Zone we paid the Panama Republic $10,000,000. These 
were bargain prices, the sums paid being insignificant as com- 
pared to the value of the lands, the one being small, but as 
important as any piece of ground of equal size upon the 
globe, the other magnificent in area and containing wealth 
many times greater in amount than the price we paid for it. 
For years Alaska has been a particularly interesting country 
to me, but after 8,000 miles of travel in this vast Northern 
Territory of ours, I was more than ever impressed with its 
great resources, and the further fact that our governmental 
policy was crippling and restricting its proper and natural 
development. I fully believe that Alaska should be made into 
a colonial possession and not remain a Territory. I also 
believe that our Government should not engage in railway 
construction in Alaska, where failure can be the only result. 
It has seemed to me that not only was Alaska in itself worth 
writing about, but that political obstructions that have been 
placed in the path of its progress ought to be removed. My 
reasons, I believe, will be found "good and sufficient" by 
readers of the chapters on Alaska that follow. 

As for the Panama Canal Zone and the great Canal itself, 
few things on earth so entirely justify description. But my 
object has been something more, that is to present to the pub- 
lic my plan for making the Canal Zone yield the American peo- 

vii 



viii INTRODUCTION 

pie profitable returns upon their enormous investment. It is 
my opinion that this can be done by making the Canal Zone a 
great Free Port of Exchange for the products of all nations ; 
that is, a zone free of all custom duties, thus encouraging the 
nations of the world to trade with us. How this can be done at 
the Canal, and how other nations have made profitable use of 
this principle for the stimulation of trade, the reader will find 
fully stated in that portion of this book dealing with the Canal 
Zone. 

The wide interest created by my book, Illustrated South 
America, published two years ago, suggested to me that there 
was public need of a companion volume that would give read- 
ers and investigators a comprehensive view of the United 
States Colonial System and our Dependencies. Few among 
us thoroughly appreciate that we have become a great coloniz- 
ing power, owning thousands of islands in adjoining seas, 
possessing otiier bodies of land lying outside of the immediate 
boundaries of the United States, and with several Republics 
not owned by us depending upon us for protection. This 
fact is of importance to citizens of the United States ; they and 
their children ought to be fully posted about it so as to 
act intelligently on questions of policy that are now pending, 
and other questions that are Ixiund in the future to arise. 
Hence I am issuing simultaneously with this book a vol- 
ume of 65S pages, highly illustrated, entitled United States 
Colonies and Depe>idencies. which deals fully with all our 
possessions and spheres of influence. The contents of this 
smaller book are reprinted from a portion of the larger one, 
as there may be readers who are especially interested only 
in Alaska and the Panama Canal. The matter contained in 
this book was first printed in The Saturday Blade, one of our 
papers, and, as in the case of my South American letters, there 
were a number of requests for its reproduction in a more 

permanent form. ,. ^1 

'- Very truly, 



lM;-:^r7^>^>-pf.'^ 



CONTENTS 

ALASKA 



CHAPTER 

I. SITUATION AND RACE SOURCE 

II. DISCOVERY AND FUR TRADING 

III. UNCLE SAM IN ALASKA 

IV. MINING IN ALASKA 

V. Alaska's railroads 

VI. SEALS AND SALMON 

VII. FARMING IN ALASKA 

VIII. INTERIOR ALASKA 

IX. COAST TOWNS OF ALASKA 

X. TYPES AND SCENES 





I 


13 


23 




31 




40 




48 


. 


60 


. 


69 


• 


87 




109 



THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC OP 
PANAMA 



I. THE CANAL AND REPUBLIC 
II. BUILDING AND OPERATION 
III. TOLLS AND A FREE PORT , 



130 
142 
153 



IX 



ALASKA 

Area in square miles, 590,884, about one-fifth the size of the 
entire United States — Population, census 1910, 64,356, 
nearly equally divided betzveen zvhites and natives, about 
one person to every nine square miles; population slightly 
decreasing ozving to cessation of railroad building and zvith- 
drazval of coal lands; capital, Juneau, population, 1914, 
about 4,000 — Chief resources of Alaska, gold, silver, copper, 
coal, tin, fisheries, furs, timber, seals, agricidture (the latter 
to be developed) — Imports to Alaska from the United 
States in 1913, $20,82^,262; exports from Alaska to United 
States, $24,634,987, exclusive of gold and other minerals 
estimated at $22,000,000; fisheries and furs yield about 
$18,000,000 annually; extent of forests, 156,250 square 
mUes; extent of coal fields, estimated by United States 
survey, 12,66/ square miles. 

CHAPTER I. 

SITUATION AND RACE SOURCE). 

"Yukon Crossing^ July 2, 191 3. 
"To Editor, Dazvson Nezvs: 
1 1 T N REPLY to your telegram for 100 words by wire on 
X my first impression of Alaska, I send you the ft)llowing: 
"After viewing the wonderful natural scenery of this por- 
tion of North America, there is no doubt in my mind that the 
first inhabitants of the American Continent crossed over from 
Asia, only a few miles distant, to Alaska, and were so charmed 
by the natural beauty of the valley of the Yukon that they 
never returned. Each year should double the number of 
tourists to a country where the camera, the artist's brush and 

I 



2 ALASKA 

the writer's pen can only give to the world the faintest idea o£ 
the beauties of nature, the treasures of the mines, the rare fur 
animals, the countless fishes of the sea and streams, the rich- 
ness of the soil and the big-heartedness of the splendid white 
men and women who have made this country their home. 

"W. D. BOYCE." 

The above was written when I had reached the great valley 
of the Yukon. Afterward I traveled many thousands of miles 
through Alaska, visiting nearly every ocean port and island 
and mainland division, but I did not change my mind, nor 
could I have expressed myself more truthfully in lOO or i,ooo 
words. The story of the creation of the world was told in 
600 words. It will take 25,000 words and numerous photo- 
graphs to give the reader an adequate conception of past, 
present and future Alaska. 

East Cape, Siberia, in Asia, is no doubt "the mother of 
America." From the nearest sheltered harbor it is less than 
fifty miles from Siberia to Alaska by water. Midway there 



mam 



' Tw^r>(**abt*A9l*S" " 




THE DIOMEDE ISLANDS. BERING STRAITS, 



ALASKA 3 

are two islands, the Diomedes, which break the journey by 
small boat, so that the tiny canoe, or kayak, for one person, or 
the big skin boat carrying twenty or more men or women, could 
in perfect safety cross in the summer time, making daily round 
trips to Alaska. In the winter time it is always entirely 
frozen over, and without doubt the aborigines crossed from 
East Cape to Cape Prince of Wales, as people do now, using 
reindeer, dogs or traveling on snowshoes. For eight months 
each year, owing to Bering Straits being one solid field of ice, 
North America and Asia are as one. This is the all-land or ice 
route from the United States to Europe, through Asia, for the 
person who gets seasick or is afraid of water. 

While on board ship, a few miles north of the Diomede 
Islands, one clear morning, I could see very easily and dis- 
tinctly both Asia (Siberia) and North America (Alaska). As 
I stood looking at both shores I was reminded of the wild 
scheme, put forward some years ago, by which it was proposed 
to connect the two continents with a railroad tunnel. Such a 
tunnel would certainly need really to "penetrate the bowels of 




BETWEEN ALASKA AND SIBERIA. 



4 ALASKA 

the earth," as the water in the Bering Straits, the entrance to 
the Arctic Ocean, is very deep. 

The current from Bering Sea runs north into the Arctic 
Ocean, not south out of that ocean, as many think. Therefore, 
there are never any icebergs in the Bering Sea or North Pacific 
Ocean, such as we find in the North Atlantic Ocean. The ice 
pack in Bering Sea must wait for the ice to move with the 
current northeast in the Arctic Ocean ; hence the late opening 
of Bering Sea, about June loth, each year. The well-known 
mining town of Nome, on the upper coast, has only four 
months of connection with the outside world, from middle 
June to middle October. Point Barrow, on the Arctic Ocean, 
the most northerly place belonging to the United States, is open 
to navigation for less than sixty days each year, and in some 
years hardly at all, if the ice pack does not move out early. 

Speculation as to the place and manner of mankind's origin 




LANDING IN AN OOMIAK, A WALRUS-SKIN BOAT, BERING SEA. 



ALASKA 




EAST CAPE, SIBERIA, NATIVES. 




ESQUIMAU TOM-TOM PLAYERS, CAPE PRINCE OF WALES. 



6 ALASKA 

has always been interesting, and to ascertain from whence came 
the original human stock of any country is of the greatest im- 
portance if one is to understand its conditions and history. 
Long before man had developed a reasoning mind and become 
"scientific," tradition and guessing gave us our only ancient 
history. However, the educated and thoughtful people of the 
world today, for the most part, agree that the first race of 
human beings to appear upon the earth was the yellow-skinned 
man, and that he came into life — how we know not — in Asia, 
where no doubt the first land showed itself above the pre- 
historic ocean. In Asia the world still has its highest moun- 
tain. 

In Africa, and other countries where I have hunted big 
game, I always found the widest and plainest game paths led 
to the point or region from which came the game for which I 
was looking. So with hunting for the origin of the human 
race, the investigator finds that every trail or path leads back 
to Asia. Clearly the first human inhabitants of the North 
American Continent came to Alaska from Asia, and spread 
south and east until they reached the furthermost southern 
point of South America. The human family, white, black or 
yellow, live longer, grow bigger and stronger and develop better 
minds in the belt around the world between the parallels 20 
degrees and 50 degrees north or south of the equator, unless in 
a locality affected by the hot or cold currents which flow 
through the ocean, much the same as rivers flow through the 
land. In these temperate zones north and south of the equator 
we find the greatest body of fertile land and the best timber and 
cattle, agricultural products, fruits, grains, minerals and climate 
— in short, everything that goes to develop and sustain the 
highest type of man. I bring this forward in order that the 
reader may intelligently follow the first inhabitants of the 
American Continent as they spread from the far northwest 
coast of Alaska southward until they peopled the island of 
Tierra del Fuego, south of the Straus of Magellan, the most 
southern point in South America. 

The North, South and Central American Indians no doubt 



ALASKA 7 

sprang from the Esquimaux, who came from Siberia, in Asia. 
They Hved underground in northern Alaska during the long, 
hard winters, in a country where firewood and ''fire water" 
were scarce, letting into their habitations as little cold, fresh 
air as possible. The result was small men and women, with 
flat noses, and rather short of life as well as of stature. 
Economy in housekeeping forced many of them to live in one 




THREE OF A KIND. 



"igloo," or cave house, with only one opening in the ceiling to 
permit the smoke to pass out. As the nights are nearly twenty- 
four hours long for six months of the year, windows, had they 
been possible, would have been of little use. They lived almost 
wholly upon fresh and dried fish and seal or walrus oils, and 
clothed themselves with the skins of fur-bearing animals. Need- 
less to say, during the long, dark winters they took few chances 
of "taking cold" by changing their clothes or bathing. As with 
the little boy whose mother wished to wash him, they preferred 
to be "dirty and warm rather than clean and cold." Only two 



8 ALASKA 

prime necessities confronted them, getting something to eat 
and keeping warm in the winter. 

Evidently they were more prosperous in Alaska than in 
Siberia. Hence they kept working their way south and east 
and finding more pleasant lands, where food was more plentiful 
and the climate less severe ; also, where the nights in winter 
and days in summer were not so long, and where they could 
live on the top of the ground and enjoy a greater amount of 
fresh air. These conditions produced stronger and larger- 
bodied, larger-lunged Esquimaux. This larger man the world 
came to call an Indian. His greater lung capacity necessitated 
larger nostrils, and he therefore grew a larger nose in order to 
take into his lungs more fresh air. He found wild game for 
food that had animal fat instead of fish fat, and that agreed 
with him better. He developed a stronger mind and body, 
learned to reason and concentrate his mental faculties upon the 
wild animals and wild game about him until he understood 
their habits, and was able to invent easier and surer methods of 
taking them. 

In fact, it was not long until the Indian began the everlast- 
ing struggle that has since been and today is world-wide — 
trying to get what the other fellow has, with or without his 
consent, otherwise known as "war." This wave of Indians 
continued spreading southward and eastward until the Atlantic 
Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico were reached. The fittest race 
of Indians seems to have developed along the North Mississippi 
River, especially in the territory once occupied by the Sioux 
tribes and bufl^alo herds. This portion of the country must 
have been the happy hunting grounds, or Heaven, of which 
every Indian dreamed when he had a very full or very empty 
stomach — and it was always one or the other with these primi- 
tive people. 

After the Indian got south of 20 degrees north, or into what 
is now Old Mexico and the Central American States, he began 
to slip back again. The climate was too hot for him and life 
was too easy, as he learned to live on fruits and vegetables and 
it was not necessary to kill much of the game, which was small 



ALASKA 9 

and not so plentiful as farther north. The Indian tribes soon 
spread through what is now Central America and that part 
of South America which lies north of the equator. Condi- 
tions were easy, their lives not very long, and the small or 
undersized Indian apjicared. 

The Indian tribes continued spreading southward until they 
reached in South America a country much like southern Canada 
and the United States ; then they grew big and strong and 
brave again, not little and weak and treacherous, as the investi- 
gator usually finds them in the low tropics. The type of Indian 
after you get 50 degrees south begins to dwindle in size and 
they are not so strong in character. It is hard for them to get 
anything to eat. Remember always that through all South 
America there is no evidence of there ever having been wild 
game, to any important extent, and that the South American 
Indians always were vegetarians, or at least only very small 
meat eaters, which fact accounts for their peaceful disposition. 
This, no doubt, is the reason why the Spaniards conquered 




INDIAN SQUAW AND CHILD. TYPE OF CANOE USED ON THE YUKON RIVER. 



lO 



ALASKA 




TOTEM POLES AT SITKA. 



them so easily, while the whites of 
North America have a very differ- 
ent tale to tell in regard to the 
North American Indians. The low- 
est and weakest race of Indians I 
have ever seen lived on the island 
of Tierra del Fuego, south of the 
Straits of ]\Iagellan. 

The reader will, no doubt, won- 
der why I have thus taken him with 
the Indian from the Arctic to the 
Antarctic Ocean ; it was to show him 
the effect of climate on mankind. 
This is one of the questions that 
must be seriously considered in con- 
nection with the development of 
Alaska, and the furnishing of a gov- 
ernment for a country on the Arctic 
Ocean, so far from Washington 
and — Heaven. However, Alaska is 
a country of many contradictions, as 
hereafter will become obvious to the 
reader. 

The spreading of the Indians 
from the Arctic to the Antarctic 
waters no doubt occupied many 
thousands of years, indeed so long 
a period of time that no one even 
dares to guess its length. The white 
race, however, with superior mind 
and skill, in a few centuries took 
practically everything away from 
the Indians, an example of the law 
of "the survival of the fittest." 

The Esquimaux and Indians 
always believed in the existence of 
a Supreme Being and, having a 



ALASKA 



II 



vague belief in a hereafter, they reverently cared for their 
dead. For many years the Indians in southeastern Alaska 
erected monuments in the shape of carved poles, known as 




AN ANCIENT TOTEM PULE. MR. BOVCE OX LEFT. MR. SCOTT 
C. BONE ON RIGHT. 



12 ALASKA 

totem poles. These monuments, made of cedar trees, told 
the story of both the male and female sides of the families — 
they were real family trees. Each Indian family had as its 
original stock a name applied to a bird, fish or animal, and 
intermarriage between the various classes was regarded as 
extremely bad form. For instance, a Bear could not wed a 
Wolf, but a Bear might take an Eagle as her husband (the 
woman was the head of the family) and a Beaver might marry 
a Salmon. 

These totem poles related family history extending back six 
or seven generations, and, erected all over the country, they 
caused Alaska to be known as "the land of totem poles and 
ice." They are still considered sacred by the natives, but on 
account of the ravages of time are becoming scarce. Accom- 
panied by Scott C. Bone, publisher of the Seattle Post-Intclli- 
gcncer, I was passing by an old Indian burying ground when 
we came upon a totem pole so decayed that it was impossible 
to take a photograph of it without lifting it up. We put the 
pole back in place after its picture had been taken, and hastily 
departed, for our guide assured us that the natives would 
shoot us if they saw us touching it. Some time ago certain 
enterprising residents of Seattle stole an Alaskan totem pole 
and set it up in a public square. The natives had seen nearly 
everything else pass into the possession of white men, but the 
theft of the tombstone was too much ; they refused to acquiese 
in the robbery and the matter was taken up by the Government 
when they protested, and settled only after a great deal of 
trouble. The pole still remains, however, in the public square 
at Seattle. 



CHAPTER II. 

DISCOVERY AND FUR TRADING. 

THERE is a record that as far back as 1648 Russia knew 
there was a country inhabited by people east of Siberia, 
but credit for finding the Island of St. Lawrence in Bering Sea 
— the very first Alaskan land the whites set foot upon — is 
given to \'itus Bering, a Danish navigator in the employ of the 
Russian navy. That was in 1728. He conducted a second 
expedition to Alaska in 1741, sighted Mount St. Elias, and 
landed near Controller Bay on Kayak Island. It was a sorry 
day indeed for the Alaskan Indians, but it had to come, as 
hardship and seeming disaster have come to many another 
group of inferior people in the evolution of the human race. 
This same Controller Bay in 191 1 was the scene of a second 
"Boston Tea Party," although this was an "Alaska coal party." 




GLACIER (»\ C().\ IKOI.LI-K I'.AV, ALASKA. 
13 



14 



ALASKA 



It seems that the Government at Washington had withdrawn 
from settlement and possible use certain coal lands near this 
port, and coal, so necessary in Alaska, that could have been 
mined at their back door, was shipped from British Columbia. 
The settlers objected to this enforced condition, and they met 
on the dock and dumped the Canadian coal into the harbor, as 
their historic ancestors had done to the tea in Boston harbor 
nearly a hundred and fifty years before. It is not easy to 
understand a policy that bottled up a home product and forced 
people to import, especially when that product was so essential 
an article as coal and the country Alaska. 

But to return to the main subject. Vitus Bering made a 
report for the Russian Government that the country was frozen 
up all of the time, which is about the sort of erroneous impres- 
sion some of our Government people seem to have of Alaska 
today. But needing roots and herbs for medicine, Bering sent 
Dr. Stellar ashore, and Stellar made a dififerent report to the 
Russian Government. Chirikoff, who accompanied Bering in 
a separate ship, sent two small boats ashore with sailors at 
another point, and all the sailors were murdered by the Indians. 
Remember, they were now operating on the southeast coast of 
Alaska, nearly i,ooo miles from the original Esquimau settle- 
ment, and in a section affected by the warm Japan Current, 
and that the all-the-year-round above-ground outdoor life of the 
Esquimaux had produced by this time a warlike Indian. In 
fact, the Indians over all North America by 1741 had grown 
to be a physically strong people and were pretty warlike in 
character. Bering died of scurvy on his return journey and was 
buried on Bering Island. The cross erected over his grave was 
the first mark or display of ownership or discovery of Alaska 
by Russia. His ship had been wrecked and he expired before 
they reached land, but the sailors of his crew that survived 
constructed another boat from the material saved, and crossing 
Bering Sea to Russia, reported conditions and what they had 
found. 

The Russians, having conquered Siberia and subdued the 
Esquimaux, had an easy time with them and the Indians in 



ALASKA 



15 



Alaska, as the Russians had firearms and the natives only 
bows and arrows and spears. Alaska was rich in valuable 
furs, and the subdued races there were soon brought almost to 
a condition of slavery. Of course, they sometimes rebelled 
under the cruel treatment they received from the dishonest and 
murderous Russians, who forced them to deliver more and 
more furs or their own lives. 

While the Russians were working farther east the British 
were working west through northern Canada, until they finally 
established trading posts on the Mackenzie River, flowing into 
the Arctic Ocean. Several other countries sent out expedi- 
tions to this portion of the New World. Spain had Mexico and 




RELICS OF THE RUSSIAN OCCUPATION. 



i6 ALASKA 

California and claimed all the northwest Pacific Coast clear 
through to the Arctic Ocean. Russia claimed — weakly, how- 
ever — the coast extending down to California. If Spain and 
Russia could have agreed upon a point on the Pacific Coast, 
giving Russia the land north and Spain the country south, it 
afterward would have placed the United States in a very awk- 
ward position. But as both claimed what is now the States of 
Oregon and Washington and also British Columbia, we slipped 
in between and put up a better claim by settling Oregon and 
Washington. It was a very great mistake that we did not at 
the same time settle what is now the Canadian Pacific Coast. 

Immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War, 
Captain Cook, a famous English navigator, sailed from .the 
Pacific Ocean to survey the Alaskan coast, and, if possible, find 
a northwest connection between the Hudson Bay and the 
Pacific Ocean. He stopped on his return at the Hawaiian 
Islands and was murdered there. He did more to furnish sur- 
veys and information about the northwest Pacific, Bering Sea 
and the Arctic Ocean than all other explorers who had pre- 
ceded him. 

In 1783 the first permanent Russian settlement was made 
in Alaska on Kodiak Island. When there I saw some evidence 
of this settlement, a stone foundation that was said to have 
been a portion of a warehouse. 

At about this time France, and even Italy, added their 
claims to a portion, if not all, of Alaska. With Russia in pos- 
session, and with England, France and Italy having claims 
already filed, it looked for some time as if Alaska might attract 
as much attention as she has since the discovery of gold at 
Dawson and Nome. A gigantic game was being played by the 
nations with large divisions of the earth's surface as the stakes. 
Naturally there was a great deal of anxiety and feeling. How- 
ever, things settled down, Russia farming out the whole of 
Alaska to the Russian-American Trading Company, a Russian 
corporation, and England turning over nearly all of western 
and northwest Canada to the Hudson Bay Fur Company. The 
English company had put in a trading post by this time as far 



ALASKA 



17 



west as Fort Yukon. This was in Russian Alaska, and it 
looked as if these two hig fur monopoly corporations would 
precipitate their respective countries into serious trouble with 
each other. During the year 1793 two important events of 
lasting benefit to Alaska and the world occurred. George 
Vancouver, who had been an officer with Captain Cook, was 
commissioned by England to survey the Pacific Coast from 35 
degrees to 60 degrees north, or from the southern coast of 
California to Skagway. This was the largest order ever given 
to a surveyor, and it was completed in one year and so well 
done that navigators today go by \'ancouver's charts. If our 
Government had charted the bottom of the "inside" ship passage 
from Seattle to Skagway there would not have occurred the 




SOME SNAPSHOTS OF MAN S HliST FRIEM) IX ALASKA. 



i8 ALASKA 

wrecking of numerous vessels and the loss of many lives, as 
has been the case along this passage during recent years. This 
famous road for vessels lies, for a large part of the way, near 
the coast and sheltered from the open sea by a series of islands, 
and would be safe were the bottom of the course charted for 
the guidance of sailors. When the weather is favorable the 
scenery along this passage is very fine. 

But to return. Another celebrated British subject, Alex- 
ander Mackenzie, a member of the Northwestern Fur Com- 
pany, a competitor of the Hudson Bay Company, afterward 
taken over by the trust, crossed Canada to the Pacific Ocean 
in 1793 by dog team and small boats and came out in the region 
of Queen Charlotte Sound, about 500 miles north of Seattle. 
The only other crossing from ocean to ocean previously made 
was through Mexico, only a few hundred instead of thousands 
of miles. 

It was evident at about the beginning of the year 1800 that 
England had made up her mind to push her frontier through 
to the Pacific Coast, based on the claims she inherited when 
she took over Canada from France. Russia that year estab- 
lished a fort and trading post at Sitka. The Indians massacred 
the Russians, but they returned and rebuilt Sitka at a point 
a few miles west of the original site, and put up a good block- 
house where Sitka stands today. This became the Russian 
capital of Alaska, and remained so until the country was turned 
over to the United States m 1867. 

Several interesting characters represented Russia as Gov- 
ernors of Alaska, while in reality they were only general man- 
agers of the Russian-American Trading Company. The most 
brutal and able of these was Alexander Andrevich Baranof, 
who ruled for twenty-five years — from 1792 to 18 17. His life 
was constantly in danger from the Russian renegades and 
criminals who were sent or came to Alaska, and who lived 
promiscuously with the Indians. We find very little pure 
Esquimau or Indian blood today in Alaska, these strains being 
largely intermingled with Russian. 

Baranof, who had the reputation of being a very brave 



ALASKA 19 

man, wore a coat of chain mail under his outer clothing. He 
was absolutely opposed to anything except fur trading, and 
the first Indian who brought in gold was put to death. Fishing 
was only carried on to obtain food. There was one tribe of 
Indians, the Thlinkits, who made him a great deal of trouble. 
Their belief was "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life 
for a life," and every time anything happened to an Indian 
they blamed it onto the Russians, and whenever they caught a 
Russian, guilty or not, they made him pay the debt. The result 
was that many lives were sacrificed. 

Baranof's manner of disposing of criminals and his enemies 
was by shooting them, and it is said to have been his custom 
to execute ten Indians before breakfast. He would stand 
them up against a wall in the courtyard. By mistake one 
morning only nine were brought out and the officer was very 
much disturbed because he had to go back after breakfast and 
shoot the tenth. History gives us an account of several trag- 
edies that would make good plots for fiction. Baranof's own 
daughter fell in love with a young Russian officer, or prince, 
who was sent out to Alaska. The old man, not favoring the 
match, sent the young prince on a mission which was reported 
to the daughter as resulting in the death of her lover. She 
took the matter so much to heart that she committed suicide, 
and it is said that in a certain room in the old palace the ghost 
appears twice a year. I was in this room at Sitka, but am 
sorry to say it was the wrong day on which to see the ghost 
walk. 

Baranof, like many another hard-fisted dictator of the old 
days, fostered religion, and during his administration many 
Greek Catholic missionaries came to Alaska and churches were 
established. Even today a majority of the Esquimaux, Indians 
and half-breeds of Alaska are in the Greek Catholic Church. 

The Russian-American Trading Company grew and pros- 
pered exceedingly under Baranof, agreeing to pay a certain 
percentage of its earnings to the Russian Government for the 
privilege of practically monopolizing the whole of Alaska. Of 
course, the Government was in doubt, and had good reason to 




GREEK CHURCH, UNALASKA M>* a 




''•««CW„c„, ST,,,, 



'SM.VD 



SOME GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCHES OF ALASKA. 



ALASKA 21 

be, as to whether or not it always received its just share, or 
percentage, and was constantly investigating or checking up 
the Trading Company. The Russian Government claims that 
it always operated Alaska at a loss, which I believe is true, and, 
except for the gold and fish the United States has received 
from Alaska, the same would be true of our occupancy of the 
same territory. Baranof finally started to return to Russia — a 
broken-down old man — but died at sea. His enemies say that 
he was poisoned, but it seems more probable, after the life he 
had led, that he died from natural causes. 

The next Alaskan Governor of importance was Baron 
Rezanof, direct from the Russian court. He not only repre- 
sented the Russian-American Trading Company, but he also 
represented Russia in a broad way. He had heard of the 
mythical "Isle of Gold," and instead of punishing the Indians 
for bringing in gold he rewarded them. He seemed to have 
had the faculty of recognizing a "good thing" when he encoun- 
tered it, not unlike an American merchant who discovered that 
a man had been falsely representing himself as a collector for 
the firm, and taking in more money than any two of the firm's 
real collectors. The merchant hired a detective and said : 

"I want that man caught as quickly as possible." 

"All right," said the detective, "I'll have him in jail in less 
than a week." 

"Great Scott !" said the merchant, "I don't want him put in 
jail ; I want to hire him !" 

Rezanof didn't kill the Indians who brought in gold; he 
hired them to go out after more. 

This same astute Rezanof attempted to establish a Japanese 
colony in Alaska, but this was a failure. He did succeed, how- 
ever, in establishing several manufacturing institutions. 
Among his successful undertakings was the building of ships 
and the establishing of a foundry where they made bronze 
church bells. 

Alaska, up to that time, 1830, had produced no grains 
fruits or vegetables, and as there were only a few months in 
the year in which they could receive supplies of this kind from 



22 ALASKA 

Russia, Rezanof concluded that he would take a shipload of 
church bells and furs to San Francisco — then owned by Spain 
and a port of Mexico — and trade them for grain and dried 
vegetables, such as beans, peas, etc. When he arrived at Yerba 
Buena, now San Francisco, he found the Spanish Governor of 
Mexico had placed an embargo on trading with Russia, and he 
was officially refused an opportunity to exchange his bells and 
furs for the commodities of that country. However, he was 
in no hurry to return to Sitka, and as the local Governor had a 
beautiful daughter, Seiiorita Concepcione, he put in his time 
quite pleasantly and made love to the pretty Spanish girl — for- 
getting to tell her, however, that he had a large family at home. 
He succeeded also in impressing her father as a very desirable 
son-in-law, and while Rezanof made himself agreeable to the 
Governor and his daughter, the commander of his ship quietly 
got rid of the cargo of bells and furs and stored away a shipload 
of grain and provisions, with the natural but surprising result 
that one pleasant morning the Baron failed to call on the Gov- 
ernor and his daughter because he was far out at sea. It is 
said the matter resulted in another suicide — of a Spanish young 
lady this time. 

In course of time Spain presented the matter to the Court 
of St. Petersburg, and Baron Rezanof was recalled and more 
"gum shoe" men were sent to Alaska — the same as we are 
sending them there today for the United States — and an 
investigation was instituted, a new Governor appointed, and 
history repeated itself until Russia at last realized how impos- 
sible it was for her to operate a territory so far away from the 
seat of Government, and wisely sold out to the United States. 



CHAPTER III. 

UNCLE SAM IN ALASKA. 

THE first white men to cross t'ne United States territory 
between the Spanish possessions to the south and the 
British possessions to the north were the members of the 
expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1804- 
06. This party was sent out by President Jefferson to ascer- 
tain how promising and valuable was the great territory we 
had acquired by the Louisiana Purchase from France. The 
expedition passed through the immense region which now 
forms the States of IMissouri, Kansas. Nebraska, South Da- 
kota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, 
to the Pacific Ocean. The party consisted of twenty-nine men. 
They traveled 8.500 miles and w^ere gone nearly three years. 
Great dangers and suffering and hardships were encountered, 
but they brought back a mass of information regarding the 
geography of the region, and reports on the flora and fauna and 
climate and the Indian tribes of the vast domain they had 
traversed. The journey was one of the notable exploration 
feats of history, and of immense value to the United States. 
Immigration to the Oregon and Washington territories actively 
began about 1832. Missions were founded by the Alethodists 
and Presbyterians, and by 1845 the American population of 
this Northwest region had reached 3,000 people. Prominent 
among the pioneer missionaries was Marcus Whitman, whose 
party took the first wagon across the Rocky Mountains, reach- 
ing the Columbia River in 1836. After a varied career in that 
far-off country Whitman and twelve of his associate workers 
were massacred by the Cayuse Indians in 1847. Indian trou- 
bles were frequent from the beginning of settlement by whites, 

3 

23 



24 



ALASKA 



NATIVE CHILD, 
NOME. 



the Shoshone War of 1866-68 and the Modoc War 
of 1864-73 being widespread and serious. 

The boundary hnes were fixed with Russia in 
1824-25 at 54 degrees 40 minutes, and finally set- 
tled between the United States and British Colum- 
bia at 49 degrees in 1846. The most important 
boundary line treaty affecting the United States 
was decided in our favor in October, 1903, when 
the commission appointed to settle the line between 
Canada and Alaska decided in our favor. This 
was rather hard on our neighbors, as it forever 
confines the Yukon Territory to the interior, giving 
the seacoast in front of it to the United States. Until the dis- 
covery of gold at Dawson, this isolated piece of British terri- 
tory was of little concern, but its big yield of the yellow metal 
has put it conspicuously "on the map." Two of the American 
members of the commission were United States Senators 
Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root. Canada 
,- undoubtedly has always felt hurt for having been 

u ' cut out from the Pacific Ocean by this treaty and 

showed its resentment by voting down reciprocity 
with the United States. 

A good story is told of how the British nearly 
lost the remainder of the Pacific Coast, that por- 
tion lying between the State of Washington and 
Alaska. In 1840 England sent out a sportsman- 
statesman to look the country over to see if it 
was worth fighting for. The United States was 
putting up at least a good "bluff." This secret 
agent of the Crown viewed the disputed region, 
saw that the streams and rivers were full of 
salmon, the great English game fish, and putting 
his fishing rod together, carefully tried every 
. • Kifly. He was unable to get a "rise." Disgusted, 
",t^y ,/' so the story goes, he returned to England and 
A PATRIOT, HOLY CROSS Solemnly reported to the King that the country 
MISSION. was "not worth a 'bob' ; the salmon would not 





ALASKA 25 

rise to a fly." If we had only known of this report and "stood 
pat" it looks as if we might have won without a single battle. 

The pioneers who followed the trail blazed by Lewis and 
Clark up the Missouri River, across the Rockies and Cascade 
Mountains to Puget Sound, and set up the battle cry of "54-40 
or fight," knew what they were talking about. Had the United 
States boundary line been carried north to meet the then south- 
ern Russian Alaska boundary line, at 54 degrees 40 minutes 
north. Great Britain, or Canada, would have been cut out of 
ports on the Pacific Coast, and our coast line would have been 
continuous. 

The Government at Washington at that time, however, 
knew about as much regarding the Pacific Coast, and especially 
the northwest Pacific, or Puget Sound country, as it does about 
certain portions of Alaska and the needs of the people of the 
whole of Alaska, today. Indeed, the great and wise Daniel 
Webster stated frankly in the United States Senate that he 
didn't know anything about the country west of the Rocky 
Mountains, and further, he "didn't give a d — n." 

This parallels the position, through lack of information, 
taken by the last national administration with reference to 
Alaska. If each member of Congress could take six months 
or a year ofif and travel from 15.000 to 20,000 miles in Alaska, 
he would more intelligently understand that country's needs. 
But about the time he had fitted himself to legislate for the 
32,000 white people — equal to about one-sixth of the popula- 
tion of the constituency of a member of Congress — he might 
fail of reelection, and the new Representative or Senator 
would have to do it all over again, or guess at it. 

We now come to the purchase of Alaska from Russia by 
the United States for $7,200,000. England and Russia were 
not friendly, and the great Hudson Bay Fur Company, with 
its powerful London influence and owning nearly one-half the 
land in western Canada, was eager to have the Crown secure 
Alaska. The United States and Russia w^ere very friendly, 
and, besides, in 1S67. the United States was under obligations 
to Russia and anxious to pay off its debt. Both countries were 



26 



ALASKA 



desirous of keeping England from adding to her Canadian 
possessions. Neither Russia nor the United States considered 
Alaska worth anything commercially — gold had not yet been 
discovered — or the American Government would have paid 
far more for the possession of this territory, which is equal to 
one-fifth the size of our own country. \Ye have — up to and 
including 191 2 — taken out of Alaska in gold, furs, fish, etc., 
$510,753,251. Adding the expense of governing the country 
to the original cost of $7,200,000, we are about $490,000,000 
ahead. Not a bad bargain. 

It is reported that on October 18, 1867, when the Russian 
flag was lowered at Sitka and the Stars and Stripes hoisted, 
there was little enthusiasm and considerable sadness on both 
sides. We were not celebrating any victory and Russia, our 
friend, was giving up part of her territory. We were assum- 
ing new responsibilities in taking over a vast country that we 
knew very little about, and facing possible trouble with Eng- 
land. We had no colonial experience and our political situa- 
tion at the time was rotten. Corruption was everywhere. 
Secretary of State Seward, who had really forced the deal 
through Congress, was blamed on every side. We started 




NATIVE ALASKAN PUPPIES, THREE MONTHS OLD. 



ALASKA 



V 



wrong and, except for the find- 
ing of gold, would still be "in 
bad," as after forty-five years of 
ownership only 32,000 white peo- 
ple live in the whole of Alaska, 
and the total would be less, 
except that a lot of them cannot 
get away. Every steamer leav- 
ing an Alaskan port, when I was 
there, stationed two men at the 
gangway to keep out stowaways. 
As soon as the Stars and 
Stripes went up at Sitka the 
United States army took posses- 
sion, and located military posts 
not only at Sitka, but at Tongas 
and Wrangell, and complete 
military rule was established 
throughout the Territory. The 
Esquimaux, Indians and Rus- 
sians occupying the country were 
all taken over, and while we 
made no agreement whatever 
with reference to how we would 
treat the Esquimaux and Indians, 
we did enter into an agreement 
with reference to the Russian 
subjects. The treaty of cession, 
signed May 28, 1867, between 
the United States and Russia 
provided as follows: "The 
inhabitants of the ceded terri- 
tory ... if they should pre- 
fer to remain in the ceded terri- 
tory, they, with the exception of 
the uncivilized tribes, shall be 
admitted to the enjoyment of all 



\ 

\ 


\ 


1 


1 


9- 


1 


' i^^^^^k 





28 ALASKA 

the rights and immunities of citizens of the United States, and 
shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of 
their liberty, property, and religion. The uncivilized tribes 
will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United 
States may from time to time adopt in regard to aboriginal 
tribes of that country." 

In practically making citizens out of the Russians in Alaska 
we took over a people who talked a different language and had 
a religion unlike our own. There are few pure-blooded Rus- 
sians left today in Alaska; as I mentioned before, they have 
largely intermarried with the Indians, and quite a percentage 
of the half-breed Russian-Indian women are now living with 
white prospectors and trappers. 

The United States customs revenue and navigation laws 
were at once extended to Alaska, and the army and navy ruled. 
In 1885, by an act of Congress, Alaska was attached to the 
State of Oregon for judicial purposes. 

As early as 1869 the Alaska Commercial Company estab- 
lished steam navigation on the lower Yukon River to control 
the little fur trading posts. In 1870 a twenty years' lease of 
the Pribilof fur-seal islands was made to the same company. 
The Alaska Commercial Company was owned by a lot of 
American grafting politicians, mainly of the Eastern States, 
who had sufficient power at Washington to cause the army to 
look the other way while they did as they pleased in Alaska. 
The Russian-American Company did the same thing while 
Russia owned the territory. 

In 1882 the Arctic explorer, Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka, 
an officer in the United States army, on leave of absence from 
his command, was engaged by the New York Herald to explore 
the Yukon River from its source to its mouth. He was the 
first white man to cross over the \\niite Pass route from the 
point where Skagway is now located to the headwaters of 
the Yukon. He built a raft with the aid of some Indians and 
floated down the entire course of the river for 2,200 miles, 
making many interesting discoveries, and finally landed at St. 
Michael. He attempted to change the name of the river from 



ALASKA 



29 



Yukon to Bennett in honor of Mr. Bennett, publisher of the 
New York Herald, but this change the Government wisely 
refused to recognize. He did, however, succeed in naming 
Lake Bennett, on the White Pass in Yukon Territory, in honor 
of his employer. 

Lieutenant Schwatka is an old friend of the writer, and con- 
tributor to TJie Saturday Blade. I thought of him frequently 
as I sailed down the Yukon River. We passed one steamboat 
bearing his name. He is endeared to the readers of my publi- 
cations through the discovery of a race of people in Old 
Mexico, the cliff and cave dwellers, which was supposed to have 
been extinct for over 300 years, and aided the writer in bring- 
ing to the United States in 1890 thirteen Indians, men, women 
and children, who were pronounced by the professors at Har- 
vard, Yale and Princeton as being genuine descendants of the 
original cave and cliff dwellers of Arizona and New Mexico ; 
in fact, through him the very first expedition of TJie Saturday 
Blade was made successful. 
From St. IMichael, Schwatka 
coasted along the Sew^ard 
Peninsula toward Bering 
Strait in the Arctic Ocean, and 
brought back to the writer 





NATIVE IN KAYAK, 
LOWER YUKON. 

placer-m i n e d 
gold from the 
region in which 
the c i t y o f 
Nome no \v 



l^ffii ---./^;,i. 



KAYAKS, NATIVE CANOES, IN BERING SEA. 



30 ALASKA 

stands. Had I felt confidence in his discovery, Nome and 
the Alaska gold fields would have been opened up ten years 
earlier than they were. 

In 1900 Alaska was granted civil government with judicial 
power and four judicial districts were created. The first man 
sent to Nome with judicial functions was Judge R. N. Stevens 
of Bismarck, North Dakota, who remained there about five 
years. He also is an old and close personal friend. Readers 
will therefore understand that for the last twenty-five years I 
have been in personal touch with the Alaskan situation, and 
that many of the present problems touching the territory are 
not new ones to me. 

In 1900 the United States Government began building a 
system of trails, roads and telegraph and cable lines in Alaska. 
The work has been under the supervision of Colonel W. P. 
Richardson, who has spent millions of Government money 
with little or no benefit to the people who live in Alaska. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MINING IN ALASKA. 
ar^ OLD in the Shushana!" 

\J The same old thrilhng cry that, beginning in 1897, with 
"Gold in the Klondike !" started the rush of gold seekers to the 
then unknown North. Like all gold stampedes, only a small 
percentage of those in the rush were ever favored by fortune 
with the richer strikes — strikes that would pay to work, with 
returns sufficient to justify the exorbitant cost of labor and 
supplies typical of all pioneer conditions in a frontier land. 
The great majority of the less favored, and those unfamiliar 
with mining and frontier conditions and hardships, turned their 
faces and "mushed" homeward. The statements made by 
many of them upon arriving at home were much the same in 
effect as the statement of the lady bargain hunter when she 
came home from a fire sale of dry goods. 

"Well, wife, what did you find at that wonderful fire sale?" 
inquired her husband. 

"Why, my dear, I bought some of the loveliest silk stock- 
ings you ever saw for fourteen cents a pair. There isn't a thing 
the matter with them, except that the feet are burned off." 

Many of the returned gold seekers had bought "perfectly 
lovely" claims, except that the claims contained no gold. The 
others, those with determination and grit, pushed on through 
the new, unknown North, and from their efforts came the 
discoveries of Fairbanks, Nome and the Seward Peninsula, 
Circle, Rampart, Koyokuk, Yakataga, \\'illow Creek, Nizina, 
Chisna, Chistochina, Bremner, Kobuk, \"aldez Creek, Yentna, 
Bonnifield, Kantishna, Innoko, Kuskokwim, Squirrel Creek. 
Mulchatna, Tacotna. Iditarod, Good News Bay, Ruby. Anvik. 
Fox, and the Shushana. Each time the same thrilling cry, 
"Gold!" 

31 



32 ALASKA 

The hardier of those who failed to strike it in the former 
stampedes, supplemented each time with new recruits, shoul- 
dered their pack of beans, bacon, shovel, pick and gold pan, and 
hastened to the newer camp, lured on by the cry of gold — the 
magnet that has opened up and made known to the civi- 
lized world the great mineral resources of Alaska, a land in 
area ten times as large as the State of Illinois, a land unequaled 
by any like area in the world for its general distribution of 
gold placers. Sixteen years after we first heard the magic 
cry "Gold in the Klondike," we heard the cry repeated with 
"Gold in the Shushana," one hundred and fifty miles southwest 
of the Klondike and in the eastern part of central interior 
Alaska. 

Each new strike during the last sixteen years has made 
known large deposits of low-grade gravels that would not pay 
to work under the primitive and costly methods of the indi- 
vidual. In later years areas of sufficient extent have been 
obtained to warrant the installation of costly hydraulic and 
dredging machinery, and the richer portions have been oper- 
ated, but, even with the most improved methods of handling, 
there remain great areas that, owing to the excessive cost of 
labor and supplies, would not pay. These areas of low-grade 
ground, which it will take years to work out, will have to await 
improved transportation facilities, as the only means of redu- 
cing the prohibitive costs. 

In the Shushana district a recent quoted price of such com- 
modities as beans, bacon, sugar, etc., was $i per pound, the 
price of one sack of flour being $50. Thus it has been during 
all of the gold stampedes, with costs greater or less, governed 
by the distance from rail or steamboat terminals. As soon as 
trails and roads are cut out and streams bridged, these costs 
are reduced, but never have they reached the basis where it is 
possible to work the gravels of lower value, except in a few 
favored sections close to water transportation, where large 
hydraulic or dredging plants could be maintained. The result 
has been that the "cream" has been skimmed from the richer 
deposits and the others left until the country shall be generally 
opened up and it will pay to build railroads. 



ALASKA 



33 



Attracted to Alaska by the lure of gold were many miners 
of long experience who turned their attention to quartz pros- 
pecting, with the result that Alaska has proved to be a land 
not only of great and widely scattered placer-gold deposits, 
but with some deposits of gold quartz, also with copper, coal, 
iron, tin, marble, gypsum and many other valuable minerals, 
fortunately near the coast and easily reached by short rail- 
roads that private capital will surely build when our Govern- 
ment sees fit to lift the baneful conservation and reservation 
ban placed on everything. Of course, if the United States 
Government should ever build a railroad, or take over and 
operate the roads already built in Alaska, which do not pay, 
the laws would have to be changed to make it possible to open 




SCENE IN THE INTERIOR OF THE TREADWELL MINE. 



34 



ALASKA 



up the country. No railroad will pay in a "bottled up" country. 
Gold quartz has been found in many sections of Alaska, but 
only where situated on tidewater 
have these properties proved profit- 
able to work. The world-famous 
Treadwell in southeastern Alaska 
is now operating to a depth of i,8oo 
feet, and is crushing and handling 
at a handsome profit ore averaging 
only $2.35 gold per ton. On this 
property, most favorably situated 
on the shore of Douglas Island, 
with a splendid harbor, the cost of 
mining has been reduced to a mini- 
mum. About 4,000 tons of ore are 
handled each day. The Treadwell 
ore body has been developed for a 
distance of about three-fourths of 
a mile and in places has a width of 
200 feet. 

Across Gastineau Channel on the 
mainland, and within two miles of 
the Treadwell, are two properties 
now being opened for development 
—one by the Treadwell Company 
and the other by the Alaska Gasti- 
neau Mining Company. In the 
opening up of the latter property 
$4,500,000 will be expended before 
the beginning of operations. A 
plant is being installed with a capac- 
ity of 6,000 tons per day, and it 
promises to cut even the low cost of 
production attained at Treadwell. 

Near Seward, Mr. S. O. Morbard 
has just erected a ten-stamp mill 
working rich ore, but here the un- 
just and ridiculous United States 




ALASKA 



35 



Government tax of $ioo per mile has put the railroad out of 
business and there is little being done. The successful opera- 
tion of the Cliff mine, in the Valdez district, has given an 
impetus to mining that has resulted in the discovery and 
development of a number of promising properties. In the 
Kenai Peninsula and Willow Creek regions there are now in 
operation six small mills. The properties on which these are 
located, not being on tidewater, are subject to heavy costs of 
transportation, and only the richer properties are being devel- 
oped. Southwestern Alaska has only one small stamp mill, on 
Unga Island. The Seward Peninsula has two small mills. 

With the decline of the rich placer mines in the Fairbanks 
region attention was directed to the quartz discoveries which 
were first made in 1903. In 1909 the first stamp mill was 
erected. This was home-built and consisted of three stamps. 
The results were so satisfactory that in 1912 there were in this 
district fifteen small mills with a total of fifty-eight stamps. 
The ore being crushed probably averages about $50 per ton. 




GOLD CONCENTRATORS AT THE TREADWELL MINE. 



36 



ALASKA 




SINKING A PROSPECT HOLE ON ESTHER CREEK, NEAR FAIRBANKS. 

Operations in this section extend over a distance of twenty- 
five miles. As to the extent of the district, no estimate can be 
made. The field being in the Tanana interior, about 380 miles 
from the coast, the cost of development and operations is so 
excessive that only the higher grade ore can be mined. 

Gold quartz discoveries have been made in many other 
widely separated sections of Alaska. In many instances these 
are so remote from rail or water transportation that very little 
work has been done on them and their value and extent are not 
known with any degree of accuracy, but from the profitable 
results already obtained it can be conservatively predicted that 
Alaska has many rich undevek)ped quartz deposits. 

The existence of copper in Alaska was known to the Rus- 



ALASKA 37 

sians in early days, but it is evident that their information was 
secondary and through the Indians. It was not until 1899 that 
any of the richer deposits were pointed out by the natives to 
the whites. In that year prospectors were guided to the 
Latouche Bonanza copper deposit on Latouche Island, 
Prince William Sound, and to the Nikolai deposit in the 
Copper River region. It was in the latter, named after Chief 
Nikolai, that prospectors, searching the surrounding country 
in the following year, discovered the famous Kennecott 
Bonanza deposit, said to run 60 per cent copper, the mine 
that caused the Guggenheims and Morgans to spend $20,- 
000,000 in building a railroad 196 miles long at a cost of 
over $100,000 a mile in order to transport the ore to the coast. 




SLUICING FOR GOLD OX ESTHER CREEK, NEAR FAIRBANKS. 



38 



ALASKA 



This mine during the last two years of operation paid $3,000,- 
000 in dividends. The railroad has been run at a big loss, and, 
it is said, they are more than willing that Uncle Sam should 
step in and spend some of his money. 

Copper deposits have been discovered on the northeast 
slope of this range of mountains, extending from the White 
to the Nabesna River, a distance of about sixty miles. In 
southwestern Alaska and in southern Alaska are a number of 
producing copper mines on tidewater. The Kennecott Bonanza 
is the only interior copper mine now being worked. 

Coal is found in several explored sections of Alaska, rang- 
ing in quality from lignite to anthracite. As only one-fourth 
of Alaska is geologically known, and only a very small part 
of this area by detailed surveys, any estimate of the enormous 
quantity of coal available is purely speculative. The United 
States Geological Survey in a recent publication states that it 
is probably safe to say that the minimum estimate of Alaska's 
coal resources should be placed at 150,000,000,000 tons, and 
that the actual tonnage may be many times that amount. This 
estimate, stated to be a minimum one, would provide for an 
output of 10,000 tons daily — the present output of all the coal 
mines in British Columbia — for over 40,000 years. This being 




COAL FIELDS ON THE NENANA RIVER. THE DARK STREAKS ARE- 
ENORMOUS LAYERS OF COAL. 



ALASKA 39 

true, I can see no good reason for reserving, conserving or 
"bottling" it up. The coal today being used by the United 
States Government for the supply of our naval and revenue 
vessels in Alaskan waters, and as fuel for the Northern army 
posts, is brought from Australia in Norwegian vessels at a 
cost of about $15 per ton, while the billions of tons of Alaskan 
coal remain undeveloped and tied up by our Government's 
policy.* 

Tin promises to become one of the valuable mineral 
resources of Alaska. It is found in the Seward Peninsula and 
in the region between the Tanana and Yukon Rivers. It is 
only during the last four years that there has been any intelli- 
gent effort made in the mining of tin in Alaska. In 1910 the 
value of tin ore exported from Alaska was $6,750. In 191 2 
the value was $90,831. In 191 3 there was also a substantial 
increase. These are the only known tin deposits of any extent 
on the North American Continent, and a large amount of tin 
plate is used in the Alaskan fishing industry. With the tin 
industry sufficiently developed to warrant the construction of 
smelting works in the North, it would result in a great saving, 
as all tin ores now have to be shipped to Europe for reduction. 

Gypsum for the manufacture of plaster of paris and land 
plaster, or fertilizer, has likewise been found and is being 
mined on tidewater in southeastern Alaska. The value of this 
industry in 1912 was $129,375. 

Petroleum has been discovered in the Controller Bay and 
Cook Inlet regions of Alaska, and in the former locality a small 
refinery has been erected, from the products of which the local 
markets are supplied with gasoline. The Alaskan oils in both 
of these fields are of a paraffin base, the type that is daily 
becoming more valuable, owing to the heavy demand for gaso- 
line. 

*Note: — Since the above was written and first pulilisherl our Gov- 
ernment naval experts on fuel liave condemned this coal, stating 
that it is not fit for navy use. 



CHAPTER V. 

Alaska's railroads. 

ALASKA, like all new countries, has her share of success- 
ful men, also of windy boomers and human failures. 
The human failures and Government employes all want the 
Government to spend a lot of money in Alaska in building rail- 
roads, wagon roads, bridges and winter trails, dredging har- 
bors and other cash-distributing projects. In fact. I heard it 
suggested that if Canada would permit, it would be a good 
scheme to pump the Japan Current into the source of the 
Yukon River, and from thence let it flow west down that 
stream, making a perpetual warm country out of the Valley of 
the Yukon. This, of course, would be objected to by the 
Alaskans living on the Pacific waters, as it would favor 
the Yukon Valley and Bering Sea, and leave their part of the 
country frozen eight months out of the twelve. So you see 
how impossible it is to please or serve more than 3,000 or 
4,000 people in Alaska at less than a cost of several billions of 
dollars without disappointing the other 28,000. 

Seriously speaking, it must not be forgotten that the 32.000 
white people in Alaska are scattered over a territory one-fifth 
the size of the United States. The winters, except for a 
small strip of country along the southeast coast — afifected by 
the warm Japan Current — extend over eight months of the 
year. This meager and widely scattered population and the 
long Arctic winters unquestionably make the shaping and 
handling of most projects unusually risky and difficult. Never- 
theless, Alaska is a wonderful country in many ways, and I 
have never met with a braver, stronger lot of men — two- 
thirds of the population are men — in any other part of the 
world. They come from everywhere, but especially from the 

40 



ALASKA 41 

Pacific Coast and gold-producing States ; some from Australia, 
Canada and the cold countries of Europe. 

Keep in mind all the time, however, that it is over 1,500 
miles from Ketchikan, the southeast corner of Alaska, to Cape 
Prince of Wales, on Bering Strait, northwest of Nome. And 
again, it is over 1,500 miles from Unalaska and Dutch Harbor, 
in the southwest corner of Alaska, to the Arctic Ocean north of 
Fort Yukon. While Alaska is not equal to a country 1,500 
miles square, it is just as difficult to serve from a transporta- 
tion standpoint, and nearly all of its service must be by rail, as 
compared with water, except a few fishing towns and ports 
on the south and southwest coasts, as the rivers, as well as 
Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, are frozen for eight months, 
and sometimes more, each year. 

I traveled over 8,000 miles in Alaska, and found the popula- 
tion of 32,000 whites pretty evenly divided between the inland 
and coast, and was impressed with the impossibility of our 
Government acting fairly toward the whole of Alaska in 
undertaking to supply them with transportation, to say nothing 
of the enormous expense and inevitable loss when it shall be 
attempted. As nearly as I can calculate, it would cost $200,- 
000,000 to serve 20,000 of the 32,000 Alaskans with railroads 
at an annual loss of $30,000,000 a year, or equal to $1,500 a 
year pension for each man, woman and child brought within 
the transportation belt. 

Of course, for $50,000,000 five thousand people can be 
served, but the rates and percentage will remain the same, and 
the rest of the people, entitled to equally as good treat- 
ment, will be disappointed, and with a just cause for complaint. 

Now, as to traffic or tonnage to be developed by the Gov- 
ernment in spending millions of dollars for railroads. It seems 
doubtful if any great amount of freight can be secured, aside 
from coal, and the cost of mining the coal — with labor in 
Alaska from $4 to $6 a day — the quality of the coal, and the 
long water haul after the railroad has brought it to the Alaskan 
coast — Alaska's coal is in the interior — must all be considered. 
Always remember, that steam coal at Seattle, the nearest 



42 ALASKA 

market, 1,200 miles distant by water, is selling at about $3 a 
ton ; that the only thing Alaska timber is really good for is to 
be used as firewood, and that the whole northwest Pacific Coast 
has an abundance of such fuel ; and, furthermore, that the 
Panama Canal, from a commercial standpoint, is expected to 
supply California with cheap coal, in order that vessels may 
have a cargo both ways, and reduce the carrying charges on 
American bottoms using the canal and loaded with Pacific 
Coast fruits, grains and lumber for Eastern and European 
ports. 

If the Alaskan coal fields are fully opened up, and are as 
extensive and as cheap to mine as claimed, and the rail and 
water haul as cheap as on the Atlantic Coast, then less coal will 
go through the Panama Canal, and there will be empty bottoms 
going west and double charges for cargoes coming east. 

However, I am getting away from Alaska, though not from 
what afifects Alaska. Cut off as it is from the United States, 
with Canada in between, but with a splendid navigable ocean 
and an inside course, back of islands, which enables vessels to 
sail from Seattle to Skagway on waters equal to a big river 
that widens out to lakes here and there, the coast town trans- 
portation by water from the southeastern port of Ketchikan 
to Seward, 800 miles to the northwest, is ideal and open the 
year around. On this coast line of 800 miles we find more or 
less prosperous towns, with 50 per cent of the total population 
of Alaska. 

Almost every coast town that has a port open the year 
around is claiming to be the only point from which to reach 
the interior of Alaska. It is perfectly natural that each of 
these points should wish to benefit from the building of a rail- 
road, although I am only trying to be frank and truthful when 
I say that the deadest towns I was in, like Skagway, Cordova 
and Seward, had railroads. Apparently, it was only while 
money was being spent in building these roads that the towns 
showed great activity. 

There are eight railroads in Alaska. Six have failed, and 
only four are being operated at all, and but a portion of the 



ALASKA 



43 



year. I will tell you about the only two that have never gone 
into the hands of a receiver, although these two have never 
paid the stockholders any dividends. 

The White Pass & Yukon Route, from Skagway, Alaska, 
to White Horse, in the Yukon Territory, Canada, is no miles 
in length. Twenty miles of the line is in the United States. 
In 1897, when the Dawson placer deposits were discovered, 
thousands of men sailed from all over the world to Skagway, 
winter and summer alike, and hundreds lost their lives on the 
White Pass through snowslides and exposure. Then this rail- 
road was quickly and well built by English capital, and the trail 
destroyed by blasting for rail construction. There followed a 
rate of twenty cents a mile per passenger, with "any old rate" 
for freight. The same rates are still in effect, and as the com- 
pany owns the boats on the Yukon River for some 1,200 miles, 
passengers and shippers are up against the same monopoly of 
internal trat^c, both in the Yukon Territory and Alaska proper. 




INSPIR.\TI0X POINT, OX WHITE PA.'^S R.MLROAD. 



44 



ALASKA 




ALONG THE LINE OF THE COPPER RIVER AND NORTHWESTERN RAILROAD. 



Yet, even at the prices named, the company is unable to pay 
a dividend. The trains and boats are good, the best to be found 
anywhere in Alaska, and passengers are treated like human 
beings, but there is simply not enough business. 

The Copper River & Northwestern, the only other road 
in Alaska not in the hands of a receiver, is owned and operated 
by the Guggenheims and Morgans, and runs from Cordova to 
Kennecott, 196 miles, to reach a number of rich copper prop- 
erties, especially the Bonanza group of mines, owned by the 
same interests. The Copper River & Northwestern Road is 
well kept up, and is the only standard-gauge road in Alaska. 
All the others are narrow-gauge. 

Next, we have the many times failed and confiscated Alaska 
Northern. It starts at Seward, and is built north seventy- 



ALASKA 



45 



two miles to Nowhere. This is known as the Frost Road, not 
because it was such a "frost," or is located in Alaska, but on 
account of the promoter's name being Frost. It was constructed 
by Canadian capital, and broke the bank in Canada that backed 
it. Frost, himself, has recently been tried criminally by the 
United States courts. However, he was acquitted, and although 
his reputation as a promoter is not good, it is generally believed 
that he was so handicapped by United States Government 




SEVVAKD HARBOR AND U. S. BATTLESHIP MARYLAND. 



regulations, and the conservation of coal lands he hoped to 
open in Alaska, that he never had a chance to win, even acting 
on the square. 

Owing to the inability of this road to pay the United States 
Government tax of $roo a mile each year, it has been closed 
down, and something like i,ooo people in Seward and along 
the line completely put out of business. The road could not 
earn the tax. The receivers for the railroad company offer to 
let the people living in Seward and along the line operate it 
free of rent for tracks and equipment, but the United States 
Government said, "No taxes, no run," and there you are! No 



46 



ALASKA 



wonder they have been singing all over Alaska the song, 
"Bottled-up Alaska!" The Nome & Seward Peninsula Rail- 
road, the most northerly railway in the world, 104 miles long, 
is not operated by the receivers ; they cannot pay the Govern- 
ment tax. Again, "Bottled-up Alaska!" 

The Tanana \^alley Railroad, forty-five miles in length, 
operates from the Tanana River to Fairbanks, and from Fair- 
banks out to some of the placer creeks. The last receiver has 
paid the Government tax and is trying to put the road in suc- 
cessful shape. Its equipment and tracks when I was there 
were in rather bad condition, and most of the mining camps 
on the line were still largely depending on teams and dogs for 
their freight. The Yakutat Road of twelve miles to the sal- 
mon cannery is little more than a tramway, while the Cook 




VIEW OF A SECTION OF THE ' BUSTED ALASKA NORTHERN RAILROAD. 



ALASKA 47 

Inlet Road, eight miles in length, and Katalla Road, six miles 
long, have been abandoned. 

The reader now has the history and condition of the 465 
miles of railroads already constructed in Alaska. These rail- 
roads were evidently constructed long before there was really 
anything worth while for them to haul, unless, like the Gug- 
genheims and Morgans, they created their own tonnage by an 
investment many times the cost of building the railroad. 

J\ly theory is, that if Alaska really contains the ore and 
coal to warrant building railroads, and our Government will 
take the "lid off" so that capital can invest with reasonable 
hope of returns, the railroads will follow as a natural result. 
Otherwise, it is my conviction that they should never be con- 
structed just to accommodate and enrich a few people or boom 
a town, at the expense of the people of the entire United 
States.* 

♦Note: — Since this chapter on Alaskan railroads was publishecl as 
an article in The Saturday Blade, the United States Congress has 
passed a bill appropriating $35,000,000 to construct a railroad in 
Alaska. What route it will take will depend upon the report of 
engineers now making surveys. Of course, the report of the engi- 
neers upon the several routes will depend upon political promises 
and change in Govei-nment, etc., and is an old political scheme to 
evade keeping a political promise. Only $1,000,000 of the $35,000,000 
has thus far been made available, and it is probable that this is 
all the Government will attempt or intends to do. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SEALS AND SALMON. 

A THICK fog. One could see less than i,ooo feet ahead. 
Captain Johnny O'Brien was on the bridge of the 5. 6". 
Victoria, known as the "Holy Roller" on account of her con- 
tinuous rolling. We were taking soundings. I stood beside 
the sailor who was letting out the line. He called "Forty-two 
fathoms," then "Nineteen fathoms," and the engine of the ship 
was reversed so suddenly we were nearly thrown off our bal- 
ance. One more ship length — and there would have been 
another "Alaskan shipwreck" to report. 

Captain O'Brien was cautiously sailing a course unknown 
to him. We were off St. Paul Island, the largest of the Great 
Seal Island group, and about 400 miles from the mainland. We 
dropped anchor and remained where we were all night. The 
next morning was clear, and the first day during two weeks a 
landing was possible. We were only a half-mile from shore 
and were rowed in small boats to a rough beach. 

Did you ever own or pay for a sealskin? Possibly you are 
like the old German to whom a friend said : "Hans, did you 
ever buy a gold brick?" and Hans replied: "No, but I bought 
what I thought was a gold brick." Every skin that looks like 
a sealskin is not genuine. 

The Pribilof Islands, owned by the United States since we 
bought Alaska from Russia, have furnished enough fur-seal 
skins to make several million jackets, coats, muft"s, hats and 
gloves. Sealskin is the finest and softest fur that grows on 
any animal, in the water or upon the shore, and is about the 
most expensive. Ninety per cent of all fur-seal skins in the 
world have been taken on a group of four islands in Bering 
Sea, called the Pribilof Islands because they were discovered 

48 



ALASKA 



49 



by a Russian of that name, in 1786. I was eager to visit the 
rookery of the fur-seals on St. Paul Island, as it is the chief 
breeding place of the seal herds. 

If we had full knowledge of the inner history of the United 
States Government's purchase of Alaska, we would find that 
the same Senators who engineered the deal at once busied 
themselves in organizing the Alaskan Commercial Company, 
which was given a monopoly of taking the fur-seals on the 
Pribilof Islands, and anywhere, in fact, that these valuable 
creatures could be found in Alaska. The company was to pay 
to the Government a nominal sum of about one dollar per 
skin and take care of the natives on these islands, but all it 
did was to "skin" the natives, as well as the seals, and bribe 
and fool the poor clerk sent out by the United States to count 
the number of seals killed. The company reported having 
taken and settled with the Government for about 3,500,000 skins 
in forty years. It was estimated that there were 5,000,000 seals 




CAVE XE.-\R THE LANDING, ST. PAUL ISLAND. 



50 



ALASKA 



in Alaskan waters when this political "skin corporation" got the 
monopoly from an administration it controlled. Add the 
natural increase in forty years, and there is little doubt that 
l5,ooo,OCK) male seals, under four years of age, would be more 
nearly the real total number killed than 3,500,000. 

Today there are hardly enough seals left "for seed" — 
only about 100,000 of all sexes, mostly old bulls and 
females. Quite recently the United States Government began 
suit against the heirs of the men who controlled this skin cor- 
poration. In order to throw dust in the eyes of the Govern- 
ment, the corporation claimed that Canada and Japan were 
killing many seals in the open sea. By international agreement 
every country controls and owns the fishing rights within three 




A NATIVE FAMILY, ST. PAUL ISLAND. 



ALASKA 



51 



miles of its shore, both mainland and island, but beyond that 
the water is open to the world. Inside and outside the three- 
mile zone it was claimed Canada and Japan took seals, but even 
this right was given up by Great Britain for Canada, doubtless 
because all the sealskins are dyed in London by a process con- 
trolled by a rich monopoly, and this business is worth more to 
Great Britain than a few seals taken by poor Canadian fisher- 
men. It is also true that the Japanese fleet that operates in these 
waters often violates the law and takes the risk of being cap- 
tured. Occasionally the Japs are arrested by a United States 
revenue boat crew and are sent to jail for a few months. That 
is all. 

The United States Government has for the past three years 




A RUSSIAN SWEAT-BATH HOUSE, ST. PAUL ISLAND, 



ALASKA 53 

refused to farm out these islands and has gone into the seal 
business on its own account. In igii we took only 12,000 
seals and realized on them $385,892, or over ^t,2 per skin. 
During the years 1912 and 1913 the Government has killed only 
enough to provide seal meat for the natives who live on the 
islands. The herds are now increasing rapidly, and this 
industry should net the Government over $1,000,000 a year 
when we really begin killing again. 

So much for the history and business side. We will now 
turn to the habits of the seals, for they are peculiarly interest- 
ing creatures. The seals on the Pribilof Islands are all fur- 
seals. Every seal, wherever found, has hair, but this seal has 
a thick fur under the hair. It is the fur that makes the skin 
valuable, the hair being removed in tanning. The hair on the 
adult seals is usually a dark gray. They are known as "sea- 
bear." The males are called "bulls," the females "cows" and 
the young ones "pups." The females live in a harem bossed 
by an old bull, and the other adult males live to themselves and 
are called "bachelors." The place inhabited by seals on the 
shore is called a "rookery," and where they are taken, killed and 
skinned a "fishery." 

The large old bulls have harems of different sizes. I saw 
them with from six to sixty cows. The bulls fight among 
themselves and their greatest concern appears to be in keeping 
their cows from reaving them. During the breeding season, 
and while the ofl:'spring are young — June, July and August on 
the Pribilof Islands — the bull never leaves the rookery or his 
harem. He goes without food for three months at a time or, 
as it were, hibernates during the summer as the bear does in 
the winter. It would be a great scheme to cross the seal and 
the bear, and produce an animal that would not need to cat 
during either winter or summer. 

The cow seal gives birth to one pup every year and nurses 
it. She goes to the ocean for food and will remain as long as 
seven days. If she is killed the pup starves to death. Hence 
the killing of a cow always results in two deaths. A big bull 
weighs about 400 pounds and is from six to seven feet in 



ALASKA 55 

length. The weight of a cow seal usually approximates 
eighty pounds and it measures about four feet in length. 

All seals live on fish and squid found in the ocean. The 
correct practice is to kill off all "bachelors" at three years of 
age. Their fur is then in prime condition, and, as they have 
no harem, they live useless lives. The custom on the Pribilof 
Islands has been to drive the bachelors across the island like so 
many sheep to the slaughtering point, where they are simply 
clubbed to death and skinned. The natives, half-breed Rus- 
sians or Indians, are given all they want to eat and the rem- 
nants of the carcasses are buried. It is necessary to drive the 
seals very slowly, as they move in what appears to be short 
jumps, and if the ground is rough or stony they injure the 
skins and the fur. 

One attractive feature of female seal life is the absence of 
old maids, widows, grass widows and unmarried maidens. As 
they are not killed for their skins, they always belong to some 
harem. The seals have their secret. No one knows where 
they go in the winter, or between September and June. They 
disappear from the Pribilofs and return the following summer. 
The educated seals that the public sees in circuses and shows 
are not the fur-seals. They have only hair on their bodies. 
They are the more intelligent. 

Fur-sealing is an industry that should always be conducted 
by the Government or under the strictest Government control, 
if that is possible so far away. The world's next largest 
"rookery" to that on the Pribilof Islands, where fur-seals are 
taken, is off the coast of Uruguay, South America, and is 
handled by the Uruguayan Government very successfully. 

The total market value of the raw fur-seals taken in Alaska 
since the United States bought the country in 1867 is $52,257,- 
135. The total from the salmon and other fishing, up to the 
close of 1912, is given as $167,420,000, or a grand total from 
Alaskan waters since the United States took over the country 
of $219,672,135. while the total value of the gold mined since 
1867 is $213,018,719, leaving a balance in favor of salmon and 



56 



ALASKA 




AN ALASKAN FISH-WHEEL. ON THE YUKON. 



seals, or fishing, of $6,000,000. Yet, almost every one thinks of 
Alaska as only a cold, gold-producing country. 

Salmon fishing in the North Pacific Ocean has been much 
more profitable and certain of success than gold mining on the 
shore. Few people understand the peculiarities of the salmon. 
They hatch in a fresh-water stream, go to the ocean and remain 
about three years, then come back to the stream in which they 
were born, deposit there their eggs or spawn, and die. They 
do not return to the ocean. No other fish is like the salmon in 
this respect. 

I was much interested in what I was told by Bishop Rowe 
of the Episcopal Church, who is known and loved all over 
Alaska. He considered fishing the chief necessary and per- 
manent industry of Alaska, especially for the poor people and 
natives. He told me that unless the new Territorial Legisla- 
ture passed adequate protective laws, fishing in Alaska had 



ALASKA 



57 




A CANNING FACTORY AT PETERSBURG, ALASKA. 



seen its best days. He related to me how the first Legislature, 
that of the spring of 1913. had refused to pass a law prohibit- 
ing fishing by setting nets at the mouths of rivers up which the 
salmon go to spawn. He hoped that the next Legislature 
would not be so shortsighted. 

The fishing industry of Alaska is assuming immense pro- 
portions. As an illustration, it may be mentioned that twenty- 
six new salmon-packing establishments were built in 191 2, while 
large additions have been made to the fleets engaged in the 
deep sea and whaling industries. 

The salmon industry now extends from Ketchikan in 
southeast Alaska, for a distance of 2,000 miles, following the 
general course of the shore line, to Bristol Bay in Bering Sea, 



58 ALASKA 

and at this time an unknown distance beyond, but not less than 
800 miles, both on the mainland and northwest of Nome and 
the larger islands. Five species of salmon are used commer- 
cially, known respectively as, first, Coho or Silver ; second, 
Dog or Cum ; third, Humpback or Pink ; fourth, King or 
Spring; fifth, Red or Sockeye. Of these the King is especially 
valuable on account of its large size, as it attains a length of 
four feet and a weight of more than thirty pounds, and the 
Sockeye on account of the deep red color of the flesh, which 
many people fancy is essential as indicating good salmon. 

The halibut fishing is carried on chiefly off the shores of 
the islands of southeast Alaska, the headquarters of the 
industry being Ketchikan and Petersburg. I saw Mr. Forbes, 
editor of Leslie's Weekly, catch a halibut off the Island of St. 
Paul, while waiting for the fog to rise, that weighed over 120 
pounds. The cod banks are located along both the north and 
south shores of the Alaska Peninsula, fourteen curing stations 
being on the Shumagin and neighboring islands. These are 
said to be the most extensive codfishing grounds in the world 
and the catch is only limited by the demand. 

Herring abound in number beyond conception in the waters 
of the southeastern Archipelago, those in the northern waters 
equaling in size and flavor the far-famed Yarmouth bloaters 
of England. They are prepared as food, oil and fertilizer, 
and are the chief bait used in the cod and halibut fisheries. 
Four factories for commercial products are located at Killisnoo 
and other points west and south of Ji-nieau. The Japanese do 
most of the herring fishing, and take their catch to Japan. 

While the several species of fish life which I have mentioned 
furnish the bulk of commercial products, reliable authorities 
state that not less than 250 kinds of edible fish are found in 
Alaskan waters. Trout and grayling abound in almost all the 
lakes and streams and make the territory an angler's paradise. 

A gradual diminishing of the number of Arctic whales, those 
producing whalebone, has followed the radical change to 
modern methods. It is now customary to have a home shore 
station from which small, powerful steamers cruise, killing the 



ALASKA 



59 




DRYING SALMON ON LOWER YUKON. 



whales with explosive bombs, inflating them to prevent sinking, 
and towing them to the rendering works on shore. Three 
such stations were under operation in 19 12. 

The value of fish taken and marketed for 1912 was $17,- 
391,000. or only $6,000 less than all the gold mined in Alaska 
for the same year. The investment of all kinds in the fishing 
industry in 191 1 was: In vessels of all kinds. $5-559.534; -'^ea 
fishing apparatus. $27,782; shore fishing apparatus, $724,383; 
shore property, $7,564,023; cash capital, $8,795,387; the total 
being $22,671,109. Of this sum $19,931,215 was invested in 
the salmon-canning industry. In 1912 the product was 4,060,- 
189 cases, valued at $15,551,794, canned salmon alone. 

So. you see. Alaska's waters produce both food and (skin) 
clothing in abundance. Nature always takes care of those 
who trust her and do not violate her laws. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FARMING IN ALASKA. 

ii/'^ OLD is where it is found," is an old and true saying. 
\J Finding it does not, however, depend on chmate, soil, 
elevation or favorable natural conditions. This is not true of 
farming. Agricultural products require congenial surround- 
ings, although through the development of seeds and the 
intelligent handling of soils and crops we are now growing 
grains, fruits and vegetables in many regions of the world 
unthought of heretofore. Man cannot eat gold, timber or 
coal. He must have foodstuff, and if he is to be strong and 
effective, he must have it in abundance and reasonably cheap. 
Before I went to Alaska I was pretty well informed regard- 
ing the gold and fishing and furs and game of that country, 
but was ignorant as to the agricultural possibilities and 
products. After covering thousands of miles and seeing nearly 
every developed spot where anything that grows to be eaten 
was at its best, I am convinced that it is a poor country for farm- 
ers and always will be. Should you succeed in getting a small 
patch cleared up at a place where there was a "boom on," you 
could get fancy prices for one or two years, or until the boom 
was over. Except for the long summers and nightless days 
in Alaska, it would be impossible to grow anything. No 
warmth comes from the soil or from beneath the surface. As 
far down as a shaft has ever been sunk — over 2,000 feet — ice 
is found. This ice was not made by freezing from the top 
downward. For millions of years the country has been built 
up from the bottom, ice upon ice that never thawed out in 
the summer. The thick moss that grows nearly everywhere 
is a complete protection from the sun, and when you sink a 
pick through it you think you have struck rock. Clear oft" 

60 



ALASKA 6i 

this moss, or other vegetation, and scrub timber, and you have 
the frozen earth. The sun will draw out the ice and frost 
from about one foot of soil the first year. Break this up and 
the next year it will thaw out deeper, until after a number of 
years the frost, on account of the long days, will disappear 
from the soil by June ist to a depth of two or three feet. 

Where alfalfa has been tried it turns yellow as soon as the 
roots strike the ice. Of course, with the frost always coming 
out of the ground, you can raise crops where you have only 
a few inches of rainfall in the summer. Interior and north- 
west Alaska is very dry in the summer. Only where the 
Japan Current comes close to the southeast coast and the 
islands do they have much rain. 

In Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russian Siberia, farm- 
ing has been fairly successful in a latitude as far north as most 
of Alaska, and this has given hope to the wish that we might 
make an agricultural country out of our own far Northern 
possession. For many centuries the above-mentioned coun- 
tries have been thickly settled and labor has been very cheap. 
An acre could be cleared at little cost, but that is not the case 
in Alaska, where common labor, employed only a few months 
in the year, receives from $3 to $6 per day of eight hours. It 
costs from $125 to $150 to prepare an acre for the plow. The 
investor expends an amount equal to the total cost per acre 
of first-class farm land near a good market in an old country 
before he begins to raise anything to sell in this region of day- 
less night and nightless day. 

Again, the Government land laws are all against the settler, 
it being practically impossible to secure title to a homestead. 
Little or no land has been surveyed. The investor must make 
a private survey at his own expense, costing from $300 to $700 
for each claim, and take the chances then of the Government 
issuing him a deed. I heard little beside complaints from the 
people who had been led to believe Uncle Sam was willing to 
give them farms in Alaska. Agricultural enterprise in that 
country suggests the reply of a student when asked what were 
the different kinds of farming. Fie answered, "Extensive, 



62 



ALASKA 




CANTALOUPES ON THE GOVERNMENT FARM AT FAIRBANKS. 




GROWING STRAWBERRIES, U. S. GOVERNMENT FARM, SITKA. 



ALASKA 63 

intensive, expensive and pretensive." The two latter defini- 
tions apply particularly to farming in Alaska. 

It is possible, however, that the industrious, plodding for- 
eigner from the far North countries of Europe and Asia can 
work out something, in the next century, in this land. I will 
quote the United States homestead law on proving up. Each 
homesteader may take 320 acres. Here is how he can prove 
it up. 

"That at least one-eighth of the area embraced in the 
entry was continuously cultivated to agricultural crops, other 
than native grasses, beginning with the second year of entry ; 
and that at least one-fourth of the area embraced in the whole 
entry was so continuously cultivated with the third year of 
entry." 

Under this law not a whole claim of 320 acres has yet 
been lawfully proved up in Alaska. One-fourth of 320 acres 
is 80 acres; at a cost of $125 an acre to put in the first crop, 
the farmer would have invested $10,000 in clearing the land — 
the price of a good Iowa farm. As I previously stated, it is 
impossible for Washington, D. C, to legislate for Alaska. 
Congress cannot enact wise legislation for a country so far 
away. 

Agriculture in Alaska, at its best, should follow as an 
adjunct to other occupations. ]\Iethods suitable in one part 
of the country may be unsuitable in others. Bottom lands 
producing a rank growth of grass may be too cold and sour 
for root crops, until thoroughly broken up and cultivated so 
as to let in the air and assist decomposition of the dead vege- 
tation, which takes place but slowly in ground saturated with 
water. Where drainage is absent or very imperfect the result 
is swampy ground, known in the North as tundra, or iiiits- 
kcg, in which the dead vegetation, instead of being trans- 
formed into soil through the process of decay, is slowly 
converted into peat, or turf, as it is called in Ireland, to become 
in time an imperfect coal. The best lands are the gently 
sloping hills composed of silt and fine gravel, which are also 
those on which the birch makes its best growth, these lands 



64 ALASKA 

having been enriched by the leaves of the deciduous trees and 
drained of standing water. 

It should be clearly understood that for the present, at 
least, farming must partake more or less of the character of 
market gardening around the mining centers, gradually expand- 
ing as these industries grow ; remembering also that on those 
things which can be grown in Alaska, but if not grown in 
Alaska must be imported, the cost of transportation will be 
added to the price the farmer receives. 

Northwestern Canada is giving free land, free seeds and 
financial assistance during the first year, where such aid is 
wanted. In contrast with these inducements, it seems to be 
our policy to burden the settlers with conditions almost pro- 
hibitive in some respects, shutting out many who might other- 
wise become good and valuable citizens. Certainly our policy 
has sent many hundreds to countries with more liberal ideas 
and a better understanding of the early years of pioneer life. 

C. C. Georgeson, superintendent of the agricultural experi- 
ment stations in Alaska, is a six-foot-two native of Denmark, 
big of body and big of mind. He came from a cold country. 
Previous to his employment in Alaska he was connected with 
agricultural colleges in the States of Kansas, Minnesota and 
Washington. The Japanese Government also employed him 
to put its agricultural schools on a scientific basis, and Japan 
never engages any but the best experts. If anything can be 
made out of farming in Alaska, Superintendent Georgeson 
will bring it about. He established the first experimental 
station at Sitka twelve years ago. He now has stations at 
Rampart and Fairbanks. He was successful in raising cattle 
on Kodiak Island until a volcanic eruption covered the island 
with ash and destroyed the grass. He had about one hundred 
head of pure Galloway cattle, and this hardy Scotch breed 
was doing well until he was compelled to ship them to the 
State of Washington, as he found it was cheaper to ship 
cattle to the hay than the hay to the cattle. The grass is 
growing again on Kodiak Island and erelong the herd will 
be returned. When I was there he was planning the bring- 



I L ASK A 



65 




A DAIKV AT 1 AIKIIAXKS, ALASKA. 

ing in of a bull yak from Tibet, in nortbern Cbina, and 
crossing/ with very bardy breeds of cattle, witb the bope of 
producing stock tbat will live outdoors all winter in Alaska 
witbout hay or feed being furnished. 

Superintendent Georgeson told me tbat the only thing that 
interfered with successful sheep raising was the big brown 
bears, so plentiful on the island. Nevertheless, he had a rather 
large flock of sheep and had imported two rams, a Lincoln and 
Cotswold. The volcanic ash, however, weighed down their 
wool so heavily they could not get up and they died. The 
sheep of his flock preferred to feed on the mountain sides and 
only needed hay in January, February and March. 

His horses were doing well. You must remember, how- 
ever, that Kodiak Island is quite a favored spot and the climate 
there is tempered by the warm Japan Current. All over Alaska 
one finds an abundance of wild grass, "red top," suitable for 
wild hay, and there is no doubt but that, in time, a breed of 



66 



ALASKA 



cattle, sheep and horses will be developed sufficiently hardy 
to take care of themselves and supply the home market, and 
sufficient oats and hay will be raised to feed them through the 
long winter months 

The Government has agricultural farms at Rampart and 
Fairbanks as well as at Sitka. The two first-named points are 
in the interior — near the Arctic Circle — where from the first, 
or middle, of May until the first of August there is practically 
no night. The sun does not disappear below the horizon on 
an average of over one and a half hours per day during these 
three months. This is equal to an average of nearly five 
months of sunshine and daylight during a period of three 




i^imm^ 



THE SPOTLESS CABIN OF C. H. ANWAY, HAINES, ALASKA. MR. 
ANWAY IS A BACHELOR AND ALSO A STRAWBERRY KING. 



ALASKA 



67 



months. I observed very little difference between the experi- 
mental crops of these three widely separated stations. If 
there was any superiority it seemed in favor of the interior 
farms, although they have only about twelve inches of rainfall 
in a season. The frost coming out of the ground continuously 
during the summer season, of course, furnishes moisture. 
The grains raised are oats, barley, wheat and rye. The wheat 

and rye should be 
put in during the 
a u t u m n, and, if 
there is a good fall 
of snow, they are 
sure to do well and 
mature. Sometimes 
the oats and barley 
sown in May are 
caught by the early 
frosts, but are 
worth almost as 





much for forage as 
if matured. Potatoes 
do well all over 
Alaska, and the mar- 
ket, in the interior, at 
least, is supplied l)y 
h o m e-grown tubers. 
It is estimated tli;!i 
every acre planted lo 
potatoes, in the rigln 
-kind of ground and 




KHLH.Akl! GROW IXG ()i\ Till-: L LARK \ 
TABLE FARM, NEAR SKAGWAY. 



i:ge- 



68 ALASKA 

properly cared for, produces a crop that sells for $600. As 
farming this, in a sense, is specializing. What I have said 
derogatory to the chances of successful agriculture in Alaska, 
of course, is meant to imply that the chances are not large and 
sure as with the extensive farming that prevails in the United 
States. 

Strawberries grow everywhere in Alaska. Usually a hardy 
tame variety is crossed with the wild strawberry and does very 
well. If the growers would do as J. W. Banbury, publisher 
of the Indiana Daily Times (a friend of mine), who owns 
a ranch in Idaho, claims to do, cross them again with the 
milkweed, they might get strawberries and cream from the 
same plant. Gooseberries thrive and blueberries are very 
plentiful. I was eager to try the salmon berries, but did 
not like them. Wild currants grow in every part of the coun- 
try. Raspberries are also plentiful. An attempt is being 
made to grow apples, cherries and plums at Sitka, with indif- 
ferent success. Rhubarb is grown successfully, in some regions 
reaching a height of six feet. The cabbage is one of Alaska's 
most important vegetables. 

In addition to potatoes and cabbage, cauliflower, peas, let- 
tuce and radishes are raised in quantities sufficient to supply 
home consumption. Our steamer on leaving Fairbanks took 
on board for our use during the trip to St. Michael $500 
worth of vegetables from one farm. I was curious to know 
what the chickens of Alaska would do about "going to bed," 
when there was no night in the summer, and about their "get- 
ting up" in the winter, when there is no day. I observed, 
however, that at about the usual hour, 7 p. m., the old rooster 
flapped his wings and flew up on the roost, the hens following, 
and at about five in the morning he crowed and all flew down 
again. I was informed they repeated this in the winter time 
at approximately the same hours, all of which are good 
examples of the influence of heredity and the force of habit. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IXTERIOK ALASKA. 

WHEN I say Interior Alaska, 1 mean that portion made 
accessible by navigating the great rivers and their 
tributaries. It is possible, during four or five months of each 
year, to navigate with shallow-draft steamers some 3,000 miles 
of Alaska's rivers, and, by pushing and pulling boats up or 
around the rapids and shallows of side streams, approximately 
2,000 miles more. These water courses furnish the only prac- 
tical means of transportation for heavy goods or machinery to 
the interior, because they are open as long as people can work 
comfortably out of doors. 

"The Klondike and Dawson !" Because involuntarily 
almost every one mentally associates these with Alaska, it 
seems proper to give them a place here. "The Klondike!" 
These were magic words in 1897, and the excitement and results 
they produced w'ill go down in history with the famous gold 
rush to California in 1849. In the minds of many the Klon- 
dike is thought to be a part of Alaska. It is not. It is the 
name applied to the gold-mining section of the Yukon Terri- 
tory, which belongs to Canada. The dividing line is at the 
mountain summit called White Pass. This point also is the 
w^atershed; the w^aters flowing north and east go into the 
Yukon River, and those flowing south and west enter the 
Pacific Ocean. 

Here one finds at the international boundary line an Ameri- 
can and a Canadian customhouse. Here also we find Canadian 
Northwest mounted police — known the world over for their 
bravery and honesty. It is said that no criminal ever escapes 
them and justice is quickly dealt, as well as assistance given to 
the poor unfortunate wayfarer. 

The rails of the \\'hite Pass & Yukon Railwav end at 

69 



70 



ALASKA 



i 




VIEW OF WHITE HORSE, ON TH 

White Horse, just below the White Horse Rapids. ]\Iany 
lives were lost in running these rapids before there was a rail- 
road here. The waters are very swift and many dangerous 
bowlders and rocks project from the bottom of the river. 
White Horse is the head of navigation on what is practically 
the Yukon River. Above the rapids another line of steamers 
will carry you 600 or 700 miles southeast in the Yukon Terri- 
tory for a few months in the summer. From White Horse to 
Dawson, a distance of 300 miles, the Yukon River is much 
more picturesque than from Dawson to the point where it 
empties into the Bering Sea. 

We stopped at a coal mine on the Yukon, where we picked 
up a barge loaded with 300 tons of coal. This barge was 
pushed ahead of us down the river to Dawson, a distance of 
some 300 miles, the boat company charging $2 a ton for the 
service. The coal was rather a poor quality. 

Dawson, the seat of the original rush to Alaska and the 
Klondike, has today a population of about 3,000, while at one 




!^UKON RIVER, IN THE KLONDIKE. 



time it had 15,000. The day has gone by when the sporty 
placer miner "sands" the floor with gold dust for the dancing 
girl, which was not an uncommon practice at a time when 
placer miners were taking out over $1,000 a day from a single 
claim. However, the day for high prices has not gone by, the 
smallest coin in circulation being a 25-cent piece. Even at the 
postoffice when you buy one stamp they will give you twelve 
2-cent stamps or no change. The newspapers sell for 25 cents 
a copy. Still, as a contradiction to this, good beef was selling 
at 25 cents per pound, live cattle being brought in from western 
Canada and slaughtered at Dawson. 

As for the gravel deposits from which came the stores of 
gold which made the Klondike famous, they were first dis- 
covered in the creek bottoms where the seasoned prospector 
always conducts his first explorations. It was not until the 
work in the creek bottoms was well under way, and the creek 
claims were producing their millions, that the discovery was 
made that high upon the hills a deposit of gravel existed which, 



72 



ALASKA 




COAL MINE ON THE YUKON RIVER, ABOVE DAWSON. 



in a great many places, was as rich in gold as the creek beds 
themselves. The discovery of these higher-level deposits, now^ 
known as the "White Channel," is generally attributed to a 
novice who knew no better than to climb a hill to locate a 
placer claim. As the discoveries followed one after another 
on the various hills, it was soon found that a large channel of 
gravel existed, following the general course of the present 
streams but high above them, at elevations ranging from 150 
feet at the upper end of the hill deposits to 300 feet and over 
at the lower end. Thousands of miners were soon swarming 
upon the hills, sinking shafts, driving tunnels and taking out 
the gold-bearing materials as rapidly as their co-laborers were 
in the creek bottoms. 



ALASKA 



73 




A DREDGE ON LOWER BONANZA, DAWSON DISTRICT. 




THAWING OUT GROUND WITH STEAM BEFORE DREDGING. 



74 



ALASKA 



But these high elevations were waterless, and the placer 
miner can do nothing without water. The small quantity of 
snow melting in the springtime enabled him to wash but a very 
limited yardage of gravel and sand that he took out in the 
winter. 

Then the great Yukon Gold Company, organized by the 
Guggenheims, brought a pipe-line five feet in diameter from a 
lake sixty-five miles distant, at a cost of $4,000,000, to supply 
water for hydraulic purposes in washing down the hills and 
leaving the gold in the sluice-boxes. The amount of gold 
that this company takes out annually is somewhat of an 
unknown quantity, although it is estimated by practical miners 
to be about $2,000,000 per annum, and there are millions of 
cubic yards of sand and gravel yet to be washed down. 
Although this section of the Yukon Territory is almost inside 
the Arctic Circle they are able to work dredges and hydraulic 
placer claims over 200 days in the year. 

When the creek bottoms ceased to pay the hand placer 
miner the great dredges stepped in, and today the Canadian 
Gold Mining Company has five dredges. Three of these 
dredges have a capacity of 14,000 yards of gravel and sand a 
day, and average 10,000 cubic yards, including the daily stop 
to clean up. It requires only eleven men to operate one of 
the dredges, three men on each shift and two foremen, one 
night and one day. Everything is operated by electricity. The 
sand and gravel they wash runs about thirty cents to the cubic 
yard. 

One of the interesting processes in mining I found at Daw- 
son is that of thawing out the frozen ground. They drive 
steam pipes down into the ground and then turn on the live 
steam. The ground never thaws out more than a foot or so in 
the summer time and it would be impossible to do placer 
mining without the aid of steam in preparing the sand and 
gravel for the miner. 

When our boat arrived at the dock at Dawson we were met 
by Commissioner George Black, Mrs. Black, and some of their 
friends. The Commissioner of Yukon Territory holds a similar 



76 



ALASKA 




AWAITING THE ARRIVAL OF TOURIST STEAMER AT DAWSON, 
ON THE YUKON. 

position to that occupied by the Governor of one of the United 
States Territories. Mrs. Boyce and I were invited to remain 
at Commissioner Black's residence as their guests, especially 
for the reason that Mrs. Black was from Chicago and glad to 
see some one from home. So were we. That night Com- 
missioner Black celebrated the coming in of the Fourth of 
July, which was the following day, with the same demonstration 
that would have attended a similar function in the United 
States. Many firecrackers were exploded, sounding natural, 
although the skyrockets did not show up well in the all-night 
daylight, but we fired them off just the same. We could 
hardly realize that we were under the Canadian Jack instead 
of the Stars and Stripes. 

After leaving the Yukon Territory and spending some time 
in Alaska, the difference in the character of government fur- 
nished the people was very marked, and in talking with many 



ALASKA 



77 



Alaskans the unanimous expression was in favor of the enforce- 
ment of our laws with the same rapidity and fairness that 
prevails in the Yukon Territory. Dawson should remain the 
best interior town in either the Yukon Territory or Alaska. 

In 1898, one of my newspapers, The Saturday Blade, 
financed an expedition to dredge for gold on the Yukon River 
and its side streams. The Dawson boom was then at fever 
heat. Ildo Ramsdell, for years in charge of the art depart- 
ment of The Saturday Blade, was made captain of the expedi- 
tion. A specially constructed boat and dredging outfit was 
shipped, in the knock-down, to St. Michael, where it was put 
together, and proudly steamed for the mouth of the Yukon 
River. As this river has probably one hundred mouths, it 
apparently took the expedition all summer to decide which one 




FRONT STREET, DAWSON. 



78 ALASKA 

to go through. By that time the prunes and rice had been 
consumed and the river was frozen up, and all but three of the 
fourteen in the party deserted and "cold-footed it" back across 
the country to St. Michael. Captain Ramsdell and two others, 
however, stuck to the ship, or rather, the ship froze to them, 
and they remained until the next summer, when they traded the 
machinery of the ship for moose meat and also walked out. 
Two years later I heard from Captain Ramsdell in Montana. 
While in Alaska his feet had been frozen. My newspaper had 
promised its readers many thrilling stories and wonderful 
photographs of the gold fields. The "fall down" was so dis- 
tinct we still hear echoes of it. This is the first time the story 
has ever been told, and, I have to confess, not a photograph 
or even a camera ever reached us from Alaska. Captain 
Ramsdell said it was so cold that when he shot the 50-100 
Winchester rifle I gave him, so much ice congealed inside the 
gun that he could not shoot it again until he had melted the ice 
out. 

Fifteen years passed before I concluded to investigate 
Alaska personally. Then I decided to begin at the source of 
the Yukon, as I might thus be able to get down the river before 
it froze up and bring home photographs and a description of 
the country. So I started in on Alaska Territory from Eagle, 
the northeastern port of entry, which is 1,700 miles from the 
mouth of the Yukon. Except for a customhouse and wire- 
less station, and the caretaker of a million-dollar abandoned 
fort. Eagle would not be on the map. It is on the boundary 
line between Canada and Alaska. The United States Govern- 
ment finished the million-dollar fort in 1900 and occupied it 
only one year. This is an example of the way the Govern- 
ment has squandered money ni Alaska, and will, while it 
continues to be extravagantly and inefficiently represented 
in this distant Territory. Had the million dollars been 
spent on the natural transportation routes — the rivers — 'it 
would have been of practical benefit to miner and settler. 

The next point of importance one reaches in descending the 
Yukon River is Fort Yukon, northwest 300 miles from Eagle. 



ALASKA 



79 



This town is within the Arctic Circle, being Gy degrees north 
hititude. For one month of the year the sun never sets. I 
took splendid photographs at midnight. Fort Yukon is a very 
old trading point, and was once in the hands of the British 
Hudson Bay Company. At one time it almost caused a war 
between Russia and Great Britain. Historically, and in many 
other respects. Fort Yukon was the most interesting point, to 
me, in Alaska. The Wells Fargo Express Company has an 
office there ; in fact, this company does all the express business 




A BIG MOOSE HEAD AT MINER S CABIN, FORT YUKON. 

of Alaska, as well as operating 77.000 miles of railway in the 
United States. At Fort Yukon I interviewed an old Indian 
trapper. He had recently sold a silver-fox skin for $600. He 
had bought two sewing machines and eight clocks and had 
them all in his one-room cabin, and was debating what to do 
with the balance of the money. 

From Fort Yukon we passed on down the river 243 miles to 



8o ALASKA 

Rampart, an abandoned mining camp. Some mining is done 
in the interior and the supphes are still taken in from this 
river port. Two interesting characters lived at Rampart in 
1897. One was ex-Sheriff McGraw of Seattle, who had practi- 
cally "skipped" the State of Washington on account of the 
defalcation of one of his employes. He found a paying placer 
mine near Rampart, sold it for $27,000, then returned to 
Seattle, paid his debts and was afterward elected Governor 
of Washington. He was always considered an honest man. 
The other character referred to is Rex Beach, the author I 
took a photograph of a deserted cabin, said to have been 
occupied by him. I asked an old timer if Mr. Beach had once 
lived in that cabin. His answer was, "Possibly so, or in some 
cabin around here." I asked what Beach had "worked at" 
when in Rampart, and he replied : ' "Mostly at carpenter work." 

They tell a story characteristic of justice in the early days 
of Rampart. A tough youth, charged with firing his revolver 
in the crowded street, was brought into court. 

"Twenty dollars and costs," said the magistrate. 

"But, your honor, I did not hit any one," protested the 
young man, "I fired into the air." 

"Twenty dollars and costs," firmly repeated the justice. 
"You might have hit an angel. Besides, this court needs the 
money." 

Across the river from Rampart an experimental agricul- 
tural station has been established and is quite a success. At this 
station supplies are received once a year. It was in midsum- 
mer that I was there, and packages containing presents for the 
following, or possibly the past, Christmas were delivered from 
the boat on which I arrived. 

Three hundred and twenty-five miles down the river from 
Rampart we docked at Tanana, where a river of the same 
name flows into the Yukon. Here the Government has built 
Fort Gibbon, costing another million dollars, and keeps some 
soldiers. This fort, being located at a more central point, is 
a place of shelter for stranded prospectors and miners. There 
is no possible actual use for any soldiers, as the Alaskan Indian 



ALASKA 



8i 



is as harmless as a dog and never did make any trouble for us. 
The chief business of the inhabitants of Tanana seemed to be 
that of running saloons and supplying "booze" to the United 
States soldiers. 

One of the tributaries of the Yukon River is the Tanana 
River. Fairbanks, the most important town in Alaska except 
Juneau, the capital, is at the head of navigation for large 
boats on the Tanana River. It took us over two days to go 
350 miles upstream, owing to the many sandbars. Fairbanks 
is the center of a placer-mining district and in the past has 
been quite prosperous. At present it has about 2,500 popula- 
tion, having had at one time about 5,000. Several rich quartz 
properties have been discovered in the region, though the 
extent of the ledges so far is unknown, but the prospects for 
Fairbanks being a permanent town are undoubtedly good. In 
order to supply transportation to this town all the year around 




THE WATERFRONT AT FAIRliAiXKS. 



82 



ALASKA 




A WELLS FARGO STAGE STARTING FROM CHITINA TO FAIRBANKS. 



and open up some coal fields, the United States Government 
proposes spending some fifty million dollars in the construc- 
tion of a railroad. I suggested to the people at Fairbanks that 
it would be better for them to persuade the Government to 
take the interest on the investment, together with the wear 
and tear and loss in operating a fifty-million-dollar railroad to 
serve a few thousand people, and give a pension of $1,500 a 
year to each man, woman and child, instead of building them 
a railroad. 

In the vicinity of Fairbanks some farming has been devel- 
oped which pays, owing to the very high price of agricultural 
products and green stuff. The Government agricultural 
experiment station at Fairbanks, however, did not seem to be 
doing so well as those at Sitka and Rampart. It was said the 
rainfall had been only eight inches for the season in which I 
was there. When our boat left Fairbanks over one thousand 
idle men came down to see us off. I was informed that there 



ALASKA 



83 



is employment only two or three months of the year for men 
in this section of Alaska. Wages approximate six dollars a 
day, but the cost of living is in proportion. It was near Fair- 
banks that a celebrated bishop of Alaska was held up by a 
highwayman. The bishop tells the story on himself. After 
he had been relieved of his purse he informed the highwayman 
that he was the bishop of a certain denomination. The high- 
wayman handed back his purse, exclaiming, "My God, bishop, 
I belong to that church myself !" 

We returned down the Tanana River to Fort Gibbon, 
where we were transferred from the steamer Yuko>i to the 
old river steamer Sarah, the most uncomfortable, dirtiest and 
poorest boat I have ever been aboard on any water or in any 
country in the world. In addition to everything else she was 
a perfect firetrap, and it is said that the company that owns 




THE TOWN OF RUBY, THE NEWEST CAMP ON THE YUKON. 



84 



ALASKA 



this line got $250,000 out of the United States ("lOvernment 
for river tonnage tax in eight years, while Colonel Richardson, 
who represented Uncle Sam, was in authority. We dropped 
down the river 175 miles from Fort Gibbon to Ruby, one 
of the newest boom towns in Alaska. There never has been 
any mining in the immediate vicinity of Ruby ; it has only 
been a distributing center for some placer mines in the interior. 
The town, only a few years old, had apparently seen its best 
days and seemed on the decline. In looking over the place I 
was reminded of the story of the traveling man in an Arkansas 
village who asked a local merchant what they did to pass the 
time. The answer was, "We skin strangers." The traveling 
man then asked, "What do you do when there are no 
strangers?" The merchant replied, "We skin each other." 
That was the chief occupation of the inhabitants of Ruby, as 
near as I could ascertain. However, there were a number of 
very enterprising trappers, some of the ex-prospectors, who 

lived in the de- 
W' serted cabins in the 
summer and out 
with the Indians in 
the winter, buying 
and trading with 




them for their furs. 
Leaving Ruby, wo 
steamed down the 
river to Anvik, an 
old mission t o w n, 
where a tributary 
enters the Yukon. 
Upon one side of the 
river running into 




INDIAN VILLAGES ON YUKON RIVER. 



ALASKA 



85 




NATIVE CHILDREN AT HOLY CROSS MISSION. 




HOLY CROSS MISSION, ON THE YUKON, 



86 



ALASKA 



the Yukon lived the Christian Indians, belonging to the church, 
and on the other side were the Siwash Indians, who were still 
heathen. I observed that the Indians who were not cared for 
by the missionaries had great quantities of dried salmon, while 
the Indians who were with the church did not feel the necessity 
of providing themselves with a winter's svipply of fish. Appar- 
ently they were satisfied that "the Lord would provide." 

From Anvik to the mouth of the Yukon we made a num- 
ber of stops, but the places we visited hardly justify separate 
descriptions, since thev were really only repetitions of nearly all 
towns on the river, which, for the most part, consisted of one 
log store with a big cloth sign, another general store and saloon 
combined, some fish being smoked on racks, dogs tied to stakes, 
white trappers sitting by themselves, a number of Indian wom- 
en with half-breed babies, and several lonely graves. 




COLONEL W. p. RICHARDSON, WHO 
HAS HAD CHARGE OF GOVERN- 
MENT WORK IN ALASKA. 



CHAPTER IX. 



COAST TOWNS OF ALASKA. 

THE natural port from which to sail for Alaska, and from 
which to supply the Alaskan trade, is Seattle. A number 
of boats sail every week in the year as far north as Skagway 
and Seward. Often these are vessels that have seen better 
days on the Atlantic Ocean, and have deteriorated to a point 
where the insurance companies will no longer insure them for 
the rough waters of the Atlantic, and are sent around to the 
smooth waters of the Pacific, where the companies will again 
take the risk of insuring them. During the year in which 
I sailed to, and returned from, Alaska, five of these old ships 
were wrecked, with considerable loss of life. At no place in 

the world have I seen so many 
wrecked vessels as were beached on 
the shores of Alaska. It is im- 
practicable to apply our marine 
laws to the boats making Alaskan 
ports on account of the conditions 
being so entirely different. It would 
save many lives and hundreds of 
thousands of dollars if our Govern- 
ment would chart the bottom of the 
inland sea that leads to Alaska, in- 
stead of wasting big sums of money 
in surveying routes for impossible 
railroads that will never be con- 
structed. 

Metlakatla, a thousand miles up 
the coast from Seattle and the first 
point one touches in Alaska, is one 
of the most interesting places I 




FATHER DUNCAN, THE GRAND 

OLD MAN, 



87 



88 ALASKA 

visited while in our Northern possession. It is a one-white- 
man-and-i,5oo-Indian island. The white man is Father Dun- 
can, and he is both the spiritual and temporal ruler of the 
town and island. He came out as a missionary from England 
over sixty years ago and began work with the Indians in 
British Columbia. He did not like the laws or conditions in 
British Columbia, so he petitioned Uncle Sam to let him use 
this island, to which he moved his Indian followers and where 
he has conducted his work and lived his life in his own w^ay. 
He was formerly a tanner by trade, had good Scottish com- 
mercial ideas, and has demonstrated wdiat really can be done 
with the Indian when in honest, competent hands. The chief 
industry of the island is fishing. All business is carried on 
in Father Duncan's name for the benefit of the community, 
and the cost of maintaining the schools and church, local gov- 
ernment, fire department and local improvements is paid by 
him. Father Duncan is now over eighty-five years of age, 




EXCURSION PARTY ON STEPS OF FATHER DUNCAN S CHURCH AT 
METLAKATLA. 



ALASKA 



89 



mrMT': rr.fm. xtsl-j:.- -I'r^ 




and it is a serious question as to what will become of the 
Indians when he dies, as there seems to be no strong character 
in sight to take his place. 

I asked an Indian what denomination or creed they be- 
longed to. He said the only creed they had was the Bible. 
He did not know what the word creed or denomination meant. 
That is typical of Father Duncan. He has taught the life of 
Christ without partiality. A few years ago some politicians 
wished to reorganize the island and place it exclusively under 
United States laws as to schools, government, etc. Father 
Duncan stated that he had $80,000 in the bank at Seattle, and 
owned all the industries, but was willing to turn over legally 
everything he had in the world to his Indian followers, if the 



90 

t? 






ALASKA 



•aHEEaassE^ 








ALASKA 



91 



~1 




KETCHIKAN AND ITS HARBOR. 






THE CAPITAL OF ALASKA, 



92 



ALASKA 



meddlers would not disturb 
him in his school or church 
work as long as he lived. He 
is a strange, genuine, wonder- 
ful old man, and everything 
he does rings true. 

The real commercial me- 
tropolis of southeastern Alas- 
ka is Ketchikan, a bustling 
town of over 2,000 popula- 
tion. Again, salmon fishing 
is the chief source of revenue, 
although some quartz mines 
have been developed near this 
point. The local newspaper 
was doing well — which is the 
best evidence of a live com- 
munity. 

The next port north at 
which we stopped was W'ran- 
gell, which has a population of 
800. We arrived after 10 p. m. 
and here I had my first ex- 
perience in taking photographs 
that late in the evening. At one 
time it was quite an important 
point where miners left for 
the Klondike or the northern 
Canadian interior. Many 
good stories were told by old 
miners of what Wrangell had 
been when it was a "wide- 
open" town. Here, also, I 
was introduced to my first 
totem pole. They hope to de- 
velop a good water power 
here and establish a pulj) and 
paper mill, if the conservation 





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ALASKA 



93 



regulations of the United States Government will permit 
them to develop their local resources. There is a large 
quantity of spruce and pine in the vicinity suitable for pulp 
wood. When I was there the tide was out and the beach was 
covered with crabs and the smell of dead fish and refuse from 
the canneries was everywhere. There are many nice people 
living in Wrangell for whom one cannot help feeling sorry. 
The Stikine River comes in at this point, furnishing splendid 
salmon fishing during the season. 

Petersburg, our next stop north, is headquarters for halibut 
fishing. Large canneries have been established there. They 
also have a sawmill which runs the year around. The best 
time for halilnit fishing is during the winter months. Much 
of the halibut served in Chicago and New York hotels comes 
from Alaskan waters. In a single day over 1,000,000 pounds 
of halibut has been landed on the docks at Seattle from Alaska. 
The population of Petersburg is about 1,000. 

The next port north is Juneau, the new capital of Alaska. 




THE GOVERNOR S MANSION AT JUNEAU. 



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ALASKA 95 

The old capital was Sitka. Juneau was the only town I visited 
in Alaska that was really booming; it has a population of about 
4,000. The first Legislature of Alaska met at Juneau in the 
winter of 1912-13. While in conversation with a prominent 
lawyer here, Judge Jennings, I remarked that he bore the same 
name as a friend of mine, Charlie Jennings, who was a good 
poker player, and I hinted that perhaps he was also skilled in 
the game. His laconic reply was : "Yes, what I make playing 
poker I lose practicing law." 

After the port of the great Treadwell mine, which I de- 
scribed in the chapter on mining, the next town of importance 
up this coast is Haines. Fort William H. Seward is located 
here, with a detachment of soldiers. Chilkat River enters the 
sea at this point, and the Indian reservation of the same name 
is located up the river. Here the Government erected good 
buildings for the Indians, who promptly abandoned them, and 
the buildings are now falling into ruin. This is a fairly good 
agricultural country for some miles around. The cleanest 
cabin I was in while in Alaska, spotlessly clean in this instance, 
was owned and occupied by C. H. Anway. (See picture on 
page 66.) He is growing rich selling strawberries. The only 
thing he seemed to lack was a wife. I covered the country 
around Haines in an automobile, finding the region level and 
the roads good. The snow-capped mountain scenery is truly 
magnificent. The officers and their families at the fort afford 
considerable society for the community. 

Skagway is no doubt remembered by readers as the point 
from which miners in 1897-98 worked their way, through 
almost indescribable hardships and difficulties, across White 
Pass into Yukon Territory during the Dawson placer-mining 
boom, with this town as the base of supplies. Near this place 
I saw a lonely grave at the foot of a tree, on which had been 
carved a cross marking the grave of a prospector who com- 
mitted suicide after he had lost for the third time his complete 
outfit in trying to get across the Pass. He left a note in which 
he had written: "H — 1 cannot be worse than this; I'll take a 
chance." 



96 



ALASKA 



Skagway at one time had a population of 5,000 or 6,000. 
It now has possibly 2,000. It is the head of navigation, and the 
terminus of the White Pass & Yukon Railroad. Many stories, 
both dramatic and humorous, are told about this town, when 
every other building was a saloon and dance house and gam- 
bling joint. One narrative, I remember, was that of a certain 
tenderfoot who one day came rushing in headlong flight around 
the corner of a building and bumped into the sheriff. The 
sheriff grabbed the frightened fellow and yelled angrily : 

"Where are you running to and what's the matter?" 

*T am trying to keep two men from getting into a fight," 
panted the tenderfoot. 

"Who are the men ?" demanded the sheriff. 

"I am one of them !" gasped the tenderfoot and fainted. 

Coming back southwest from Skagway we reached Sitka, 
the old Russian and American capital of Alaska, which I 






VIEW OF THE TOWN OF 



ALASKA 



97 



described in a previous chapter. Here we left the "inside 
passage," and sailed for Cordova, 350 miles northwest of 
Sitka. This town, situated on a good harbor, impresses one 
as having a future of considerable importance, owing especially 
to the great copper and gold mines possible to reach through 
the only real railroad in Alaska, the Copper River & North- 
western, which starts here, running 196 miles northeast. It is 
owned and operated by tiie Guggenheims and the Morgans, as 
I have previously mentioned, to get out the ore from their 
great Bonanza copper mine at Kennecott. A branch of this 
road is the most natural outlet for the great coal fields located 
about 200 nu'les from the coast. When I was in Cordova 
there were but few men left in the region, owing to the latest 
placer-mining strike at Shushana, accessible from the terminus 
of the Copper River & Xorthwestern Railway. Cordova, built 
on the side of a mounUiin, is very picturesque. Two vast 




SITKA AND ITS HARBOR. 



98 



ALASKA 




GENERAL VIEW OF THE 




ALASKA 



99 





TOWN OF VALDEZ, ALASKA. 



I III iiii 





OF SEWARD, ALASKA. 



100 



ALASKA 



glaciers, the Childs and the Miles, are located forty miles up 
the Copper River from here. 

Prince William Sound, on Alaska's central southern coast, 
affords a great and well-protected harbor. Cordova is on the 
southeast shore of the Sound and Valdez is on the northeast, 
only about forty miles as the crow flies, but lOO miles by water 
and almost impossible to reach by land, owing to the many 
glaciers. Valdez is at the end of the Government trail from 
Fairbanks, People here told me that Colonel Richardson, at 
the head of the Government Improvement Department in 
Alaska, has spent $2,000,000 on a trail between Valdez and 
Fairbanks, less than 400 miles away, and except in winter, 
when you can go any place in Alaska on ice and snow, it is a 
mighty poor trail. It is the same old condition of politics and 
favoritism under which poor pioneer settlers are imposed upon. 
A part of Valdez is wet during several months in the summer 
as the result of the seepage of water from a glacier. The 
United States Government made an appropriation of $50,000 
to protect the town. The "protection," which I saw and pho- 
tographed, consisted of some brush placed on the ground and 
bowlders piled on top to keep it there. It is a signal example 
of where the people's money goes in Alaska. Valdez has a 
population of approximately 2,000. 

Latouche is on an island of the same name, 100 miles from 
Valdez on the northwest corner of Prince William Sound. 




5 M-i: ii M^» i^iM^'^'-^' ^^^^^l^^t l^ ^ 





DT'TCTT HARBOR ON 



ALASKA 



lOI 



There is nothing there but a copper mine of very low-grade ore, 
running from 2j^< to 5 per cent. I was informed that this ore 
is carried for practically nothing, as ballast for ships, to the 
smelters in the State of Washington. 

There was a time when it looked as if Seward, seventy 
miles west of Latouche, and the most westerly open-the-year- 
round port on the mainland coast of Alaska, would become a 
town of importance, and, except for the conservation and reser- 
vation policy of the United States Government in tying up 
the natural resources of Alaska, there would doubtless be 
several thousand prosperous people at the present time in this 
town. At one period the population of Seward numbered 
some 2,000, today it is about 700. The Alaska Northern Rail- 
way, constructed northward from Seward for nearly 100 miles, 
has been practically confiscated by the United States because it 
could not pay the annual Government tax of $100 per mile. 
Why railroads in Alaska should pay the Government $100 per 
mile per year for the privilege of opening up new country is 
one of the strangest of the many puzzles presented by Ameri- 
can statesmanship. 

One hundred and seventy-five miles southwest of Seward 
we came to the great island of Kodiak, which I described in the 
chapter on Alaskan farming. Dutch Harbor is on Unalaska 
Island, at the passage between the Pacific Ocean and Bering 
Sea. It is a well-protected harbor, where the weather is never 




UNALASKA ISLAND. 



102 



ALASKA 




NATIVE CHILDREN AND MIXED RACES, UNALASKA MISSION. 



very cold, and it is nearer to Japan than to the United States. 
It was an important base of supphes when Russia owned 
Alaska and is now used by the United States Government in 
connection with the revenue cutter service. 

Seven hundred and fifty miles north we came to St. 
Michael, a very old Russian trading post near the mouth of 
the Yukon, In the summer time river boats on the Yukon 
meet the ocean-going steamers at this point, transferring pas- 
sengers and freight. St. Michael has a rather shallow harbor 
and will, in my opinion, never be a port of very great impor- 
tance. One of the chief attractions on shore seems to be bears 
trained to drink beer, the bears being chained to posts in front 
of saloons. Tourists, through curiosity, are induced to buy 
bottles of beer for each thirsty Bruin, a source of considerable 



ALASKA 



103 



revenue for the drinking places. I made a photo- 
graph of a bear "caught in the act." There is a 
law against giving or selling liquors to Indians in 
Alaska. Why not also apply it to bears ? It would 
seem that drunken bears might be as dangerous as 
drunken Indians only that they keep the bears 
chained up while the Indians run loose. 

We now come to the "jumping off place" in 
Alaska, the last town of any importance in the far 
northwest corner of the Territory — Nome, 105 drinking beer 
miles from St. Michael. Early in October, 191 3, 
a large part of this poor town was destroyed by a terrific 
storm which swept in from Bering Sea. Fire added to the 
havoc wrought by the waves, and more than 500 persons 
were left homeless. In 1899 very rich placer deposits were 
discovered at Nome, and since that year many millions of 
dollars' worth of gold has been removed. The placer mines 





SLUICING FOR GOLD IN THE STREETS OF NOME. 



104 



ALASKA 



are now practically exhausted. The buildings of Nome are of 
temporary construction, even the Government structures being 
made out of flimsy material, and the population, at one period 
over 12,000, when I was there was less than 1,000. There is 
no harbor at Nome. Ships drawing more water than a row- 
boat or shallow barge anchor out in the open, two or three 
miles from the rough shore, which is constantly being beaten 
by waves. Every person who attempts to land on shore from 
a boat gets soaking wet from the flying spray. A pier has 




LANDING PASSENGERS T.V AERIAL TROLLEY AT NOME. 
PHOTOGRAPHED DURING A FOG. 




o 

< 
< 



ALASKA 



107 




been constructed a half-mile from the shore, where passengers 
and freight are landed from lighters plying between the ocean- 
going vessels and the pier. From this pier one is carried by an 
aerial tramway to a high dock on the shore. When I went 
ashore some of my fellow passengers refused to risk their 
lives by this method of transportation, although I think they 
were needlessly alarmed. 

Dog racing on the ice in the winter furnishes the residents 
of Nome their most absorbing sport. The Kennel Club of 
Nome occupies much the same position as do the jockey clubs 
of big cities. One of the rules of the club is that all dogs must 



to8 



ALASKA 




ESQUIMAU IVORY CARVER, NOME. 

be registered when they start and be brought back dead or 
ahve, to prevent substitution. Racing dogs have been sold in 
Nome from $250 to $1,200 each. From six to twelve dogs are 
hitched to a sled. The Derby is run late in the winter to 
Candle Creek and return to Nome, a course of over 400 miles. 
"First money" ranges from $2,500 to $10,000. Every person 
in Nome talks "dog" the same as they talk "horse" in Ken- 
tucky. It is a striking example of man's ability to extract 
thrills and excitement from almost any environment. 



w 



CHAPTER X. 

TYPES AND SCENES. 
HEN one makes a long journey through a great, strange 
country like Alaska, certain striking objects are encoun- 
tered and scenes witnessed which do not readily fit into the 
regular narrative, yet that are important and remain vivid in 
one's memory. I shall mention a few such items here. 

Dropping down the deadly quiet Yukon River late one 
summer evening, we came to Nulato, where there was an 
Indian missionary school, church and cemetery. In the purple 
half-light and mysterious loneliness of the mountain region, 
the scene was weird and different in many aspects from any 
other place I had ever visited. I took a photograph which 
shows a portion of the cemetery, a number of Indian tombs 
crowning a hill, all constructed on top of the ground. What 
the camera does not convey to the reader is the fact that each 
small house for the dead, marked by a cross, was painted a 
distinctly different color. The sun, burning low on the horizon 
line, reflected from these uncanny dwellings of the dead all 
the hues of the rainbow. This glow of vivid colors about the 
crude tombs where the forms of men lay lifeless produced a 
strange effect upon the mind. It was much like bedecking a 
corpse with many-hued ribbons, and you can fancy how 
strange a sight that would be. If it were the intention of these 
Indians to make their last resting place so conspicuous that 
Gabriel could not miss them on the morning of the resurrec- 
tion, they have certainly succeeded. When the Great Angel 
finally arrives and proceeds to "page" the sleepers of Alaska 
he can hardly miss them. 

The ice glaciers of Alaska are among the most impressive 
and curious natural formations that I have seen anywhere. 

109 



ALASKA III 

One of the largest of these is the great Childs Glacier on the 
Copper River. Many of the glaciers abut upon the ocean, and 
it is rarely that one finds in the interior upon a river forty 
miles from the sea a "live" glacier, traveling at the rate of four 
feet every hour, as does the Childs Glacier, It is impossible 
for any photograph to show more than a small portion of this 
tremendous formation. It is over 300 feet high, and has a 
face wall abutting on the river several miles in width, and 
extends sixty miles back into the valley and high up a moun- 
tain side. Quite a "block of ice," you see. Every few min- 
utes thousands of tons of ice break loose from the wall or 
face of the glacier and rush down into the water with a noise 
like thunder or the booming of cannon. The plunge of these 
gigantic masses into the river raises the water until it washes 
across the 1,500 feet of distance between the wall of ice and 
the opposite rocky shore and sends waves hundreds of feet 
up the river bank. In fact, it is dangerous to stand close to the 
river unless one is a good "sprinter." The play of nature's 
forces here is so grand that the spectacle becomes fascinating. 
People stand by the hour waiting and watching for the pale 
blue masses of creeping ice to break loose, fall and plunge 
roaring into the river. The boom and shock are fairly stun- 
ning. 

As I stood there looking at the towering glacier an old story 
that I had read somewhere came to my mind. It was the tale 
of a young married couple who on their bridal journey visited 
a "live" glacier, that is, a moving glacier as distinguished from 
a glacier that becomes obstructed and remains motionless. As 
the bridal pair were "honeymooning" about upon the glacier, 
the husband sHi:)ped and fell into a deep crevasse from which 
his body could not be recovered. The bride, naturally, was 
heartbroken. However, her grief was slightly assuaged when 
a wise old professor informed her that the body of her young 
husband would be frozen and preserved, much as if he had 
been placed in cold-storage, and that in forty years that portion 
of the glacier containing the body would reach the sea and the 
remains could be recovered. The professor added that prob- 



112 



ALASKA 



ably the physical life of the young man would be locked and 
held in a state of suspended animation, and it was barely possi- 
ble that he would regain consciousness when he was "thawed 
out." So, sustained by hope, the bride remained true to his 
memory for forty years. Just as the long period of waiting 
was ended the crevasse in the glacier reached the seashore, 
precisely as the professor had figured, and the cold-storage 
husband came to light. Also, as the great man had predicted, 
the frozen man awoke to life when they thawed him out. The 
wife was an old woman while the husband was, naturally, still 
a young man. It looked like tragedy, but the writer of the 
story was resourceful. The wife by practicing mental sugges- 
tion, New Thought, and a species of Christian Science, had 
kept herself young and beautiful, and the strangely reunited 
pair finished the wedding journey that had been interrupted 
forty years before, came home and went to keeping house, 
and lived happily ever after. Of course, the story was per- 
fectly easy to believe. However, standing there and looking 
up at the cold and frowning face of the Childs Glacier, it 




TOURIST PARTY AND A PORTION 



ALASKA 



113 



occurred to me that if the young cold-storage husband had 
been released from the sort of grinding and crashing crevasses 
that were yawning above the Copper River, he would hardly 
have been worth thawing out. 

But to be serious. The moving glaciers of Alaska are not 
only beautiful and amazing, they are sometimes a menace. An 
instance is that of the railroad bridge over the Copper River. 
This is the largest and most expensive bridge in Alaska. It is 
1,500 feet long and cost $1,500,000. It is located between the 
Childs and Miles glaciers, and was erected in the winter, the 
work being carried forward upon the ice. The contractors 
narrowly escaped failure, as they succeeded in getting the last 
span of the bridge in position only an hour before the ice went 
out of the river. When the bridge was located at this point 
the Childs Glacier was nearly three-quarters of a mile distant. 
Now it is only 1,200 feet away and is creeping nearer with the 
passing of each year. I stood upon the bridge with the rail- 
road superintendent, and I asked him what they would do in 
two or three years, when the gigantic moving wall of ice 




£*Jit * * * A 4 jlSJL *U » A 




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OF THE GREAT CHILDS GLACIER. 



114 



ALASKA 







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COLUiMBIA GLACIER, PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND. 



reached the abutments of the bridge. For answer he only 
shook his head and walked away. 

On Prince William Sound, near Valdez, our steamer took 
on ice for the ship's use directly from a glacier. It is called 
the Columbia, and is one of the most beautiful in Alaska. This 
g'lacier is four miles long and 300 feet in height, and con- 
tinually huge masses are breaking from its face and falling 
with thunderous crashes into the sound. It is a common 
practice for ships to take on ice from a certain part of this 
glacier. The Columbia is a "live" glacier. Where a "live" 
glacier forms, the land beneath it is always sloping, and the 
glacier keeps pushing forward by reason of more ice continu- 
ally forming behind it. A "dead" glacier is a river of ice 
dammed in a pocket, or where the land beneath it slopes down- 
ward toward a mountain or some high point. In southeastern 
Alaska alone there are 170 glaciers of sufficient importance to 
have received names. The glacier crop never fails. 

I was surprised at the tanieness of the reindeer of Alaska. 



ALASKA 



117 



When we were going down the Yukon, several herders went 
up into the hills and drove four or five hundred down to the 
river bank for us to inspect. Ten years ago the United States 
Government imported from Siberia 1,280 head of reindeer, 
which is practically a domesticated caribou. When the last 
reindeer census was taken there were forty-six herds in Alaska, 
containing 33,000 animals. The natives own 60 per cent of the 
herds and the missions and the Government own most of the 
remainder. The reindeer was imported because the enormous 
destruction of game, seals and walrus had reduced the natives 
to the verge of starvation. These hardy animals, in addition 
to furnishing the natives with food and clothing, are largely 
used for transportation, having taken the place of dogs in 
drawing sleds in many districts. One of the contradictions 
found in Alaska is that the reindeer thrive better on dried moss 
found under the snow than on green foodstuffs. 

It is estimated that Alaska has grazing ground sufficient to 
support 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 head of reindeer, and indica- 
tions are that the industry will extend over the entire Alaskan 
Peninsula and many Northern localities not yet occupied. The 
export of reindeer meat, with its by-products, is expected to 
form an important item in Alaska's undeveloped resources. In 
Norway and Sweden smoked reindeer tongues are sold at 
markets everywhere, and reindeer skins are marketed all over 
Europe, being worth in their raw condition from $1.50 to 
$1.75 each. The skins are used for gloves, riding trousers and 

the binding of books. The hair 
is utilized in many ways and 
from the horns is made the best 
variety of glue. 

Alaska has had in the past and 
has today men of unusual char- 
acter, some brave as lions, some 
tenacious as bulldogs, some un- 
scrupulous as Satan, and some 
as unselfish and kind as the Man 
of Galilee. Among this latter 



BISHOP PETER TRIMBLE ROWE. 




ii8 ALASKA 

class is the best loved man in Alaska, Bishop Peter Trimble 
Rowe of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He is the most 
trusted man in all this land of distrust. The shy Indian child, 
or abused, hungry, outlawed dog, comes to him in confidence. 
The "busted" miner or down-and-out "bum" almost feels the 
touch and presence of his childhood's mother when near him. 
God was good to Alaska when He sent Bishop Rowe to repre- 
sent Him. He was there before gold was discovered, before 
he was a bishop. He has pulled his own sled with only a poor 
Indian to help him over thousands of miles of unbroken, 
snowy trail. He has frozen and starved with the poor, been 
the honored guest of the rich and the host to everybody — 
white man, Indian or half-breed. He has not been particular 
about creeds, nor has he favored, as many missionaries do, 
only the "members of the church." He first considers the 
temporary or worldly need of those with whom he comes in 
contact, and afterward explains that this was what Christ 
taught: "Feed My Lambs." 

If Alaska were made into a United States colony, as it 
should be, he would no doubt, if he would accept, be the first 
Governor elected by the whole people. He understands the 
whole country's commercial needs better than all the political 
officers and officials sent from Washington. If the "Great 
White Father" would ask the advice of Peter Trimble Rowe, 
Alaska would get what every honest man wishes it may have — 
a square deal. 

Another able and popular man is Hon. J. F. A. Strong, first 
Governor of Alaska since full territorial government went into 
efifect, who was appointed in the spring of 1913 by President 
Wilson. He is a pioneer Alaskan settler. He started a news- 
paper at Skagway before the rush into Dawson in 1897. Real- 
izing the great opportunities for making a quick fortune at 
Dawson, he started over the WHiite Pass, packing his outfit and 
trying to get through a small printing plant with the first rush 
in 1897. After encountering hardships which none but a 
thoroughbred frontiersman could have overcome, he succeeded 
in getting to Dawson and there established his newspaper. 



ALASKA 



119 



Like everybody else, he went into mining and did placer mining 
with his own hands. From Dawson, Canada, he went down 
the Yukon and up the Tanana. He ran another newspaper at 
another point in interior Alaska — the name of the town I have 







^^^^1 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M 


1 


1^ 





HON. JOHN F. A. STRONG, GOVERNOR OF ALASKA. 

forgotten. From that point he went to Nome and was there 
during the boom, conducting the most influential newspaper 
in such a broad-gauged way that he accomplished a great deal 
of good in that camp, which was torn and rent by factional 
9 



I20 



ALASKA 



fights for many years. No doubt his wise counsel prevented 
much bloodshed. Although always a Democrat and true to 
his party at a time when the Republican administration fully 
controlled the Alaskan situation, he retained the respect and 
confidence of every one. From Nome he went to Juneau, the 
present capital of Alaska, and started another daily paper, and 
with the change of national administration was the most logical 
man in all Alaska for the position of first political Governor. 
He lives in a beautiful home in Juneau erected by the United 
States Government as the residence of the Governor, and he 
and his charming wife occupy the first position in social life as 
well as government. He is a real pioneer, understanding the 
needs of the country, and, unless overruled at Washington, will 
be able to do a great deal for Alaska. Although he is only about 
fifty years of age the hardships of this new country have turned 
his hair snowy white ; he has the military carriage of an ofiicer 
in the regular army and all the diplomacy of a statesman. He 




INDIAN GIRLS SEWING AT SITKA MISSION SCHOOL. 



) 



ALASKA I2i" 

is an honest man and, irrespective of party, was the choice of 
the people of Alaska for Governor. President Wilson never 
made a more popular appointment. 

If the good intentions of our Government and the mission- 
aries produced such results in Alaska as they do at home, the 
native Alaskan child would have a good start in the world. 
But when you consider the "world" they start in, their blood 
and surroundings, they have precious little chance of success 
after the only happy days they ever know — their school days — • 
during which they are guarded and cared for mentally and 
physically and get a start that would be promising anywhere. 

The Greek Catholic Church, which first took Christianity 
to Alaska, in the early days of Russian occupation, maintains 
missions at a dozen localities, and now nearly every Christian 
denomination is represented by one or more missions. Alore 
than a score of native schools are maintained under the control 
of a commissioner of education, most of them being at the 
mission stations, but despite all efforts of the missionaries, a 
great many native children are still out of reach of educational 
facilities. However, the attempt at industrial education of the 
natives has met with considerable success at some missions. 
The United States Government also spends a large amount 
of money on the native Alaskans for food, clothing and 
schools. My observations led me to believe, however, that as 
usual only a relatively small percentage of this money reaches 
its intended jjurpose. 

Having shot big game in nearly all parts of the world, the 
opportunities for this sort of sport in Alaska interested me. 
Investigation convinced me that Alaska is one of the finest 
natural hunting grounds in the world, as bull moose, brown, 
black and grizzly bears, mountain sheep and goats, caribou, 
deer and other big game, as well as many varieties of smaller 
game, are so numerous in many parts of the Territory that 
sportsmen rarely fail in getting good results. Under the game 
laws, nonresidents must obtain hunting licenses from the 
Governor, and on the Kenai Peninsula they must employ 
registered guides. The big game hunting season opens on 



122 



ALASKA 



August I St and lasts four months. During the closed season 
bears, moose, mountain sheep and other game may be killed by 
miners and explorers in search of food, but cannot be shipped 
from the Territory. 

In the number and variety of its bears, Alaska is without 
a rival. Scientists report that there are thirteen varieties, but 
these are classified into four general types — brown, black, 
grizzly and polar bears. Brown bears, which are noted for 
their size and ferocity, are most numerous in southeastern 
Alaska. A variety of the brown bear, called Kodiak, is found 
on the island of that name. Black bears roam in many parts 
of the Territory, but are especially common in the southeastern 
region. Grizzly bears are found along the coasts and in the 
interior. Polar bears, the largest of all, confine themselves 
chiefly to the ice floes of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. 
The polar bear does not hibernate in winter, but remains on the 

ice and lives on seals and fish. 

^^1 In Nome there are a number of 
I noted polar bear hunters. 

The moose is the largest 
hoofed wild animal in North 
America, and ranges throughout 
the timbered portion of Alaska, 
with the exception of the south- 
eastern coast region. Because 
of the fact that few men will kill 
a cow moose, these animals have 
not diminished like the caribou. 
The caribou of the plains roam 
the barren North in the summer 
and return southward in the 
winter. For years great herds 
have been killed ofif at the south- 
ern feeding grounds, but there 
are said to be millions more in 
the far North. The caribou are 
not so wary as the moose, but 

AN ALASKAN BROWN BEAR. 




V -^U 



















^«5, 




SNAPSHOT OF AN ALASKAN BULL MOOSE. 



124 



ALASKA 




MOUNTAIN GOATS FROM SUMMIT OF WHITE PASS, ALASKA. 



the species found in the woodlands is more difficult to hunt 
than the plains variety, being wilder and also having the pro- 
tection of the foliage. In the southeastern coast region there 
are many deer of the blacktail variety. The blacktail ranges 
farther north than any other American deer. 

The mountain sheep of Alaska are nearly pure white, more 
graceful, somewhat smaller and with more slender horns than 
the Big Horn or Rocky Mountain sheep. They are most 
numerous about the main divides and the higher peaks, and 
hunting them is one of the most exciting sports. ^Mountain 
goats are abundant in regions where there are few mountain 
sheep. The mountain goat of Alaska resembles the chamois 
of Europe. 

There are four varieties of fox in Alaska, one being the red 



ALASKA 



I2< 



fox ; the others are the silver-gray, the cross and the black. 
The selling of fox skins has become a most profitable industry. 
Large shipments, increasing in quantity with each year, are 
made from Alaska. There are many fox farms and the devel- 
opment of the industry is giving employment to many people. 
Fox farming is principally confined to the black and silver-gray 
varieties. Other valuable fur-bearing animals which are plen- 
tiful in the Territory are the lynx, mink, otter, and marten, or 
American sable. The stoat, or ermine, is found in some parts 
of Alaska. There is a bounty on wolves, which have practically 
exterminated the small deer in southeastern Alaska. The 
wolverine is encountered in many parts of the country, where 
it hves chiefly as a scavenger. 

Of all the birds of Alaska the ptarmigan are the most 
interesting. They have served as food for many a prospector 
and explorer in the far North. The color of their feathers 




STUFFED ALASKAX PTARMIGAX. SHOWING THE PLUMAGE OF THE 
DIFFERENT SEASONS. 



126 ALASKA 

changes from a tortoise-shell in the summer to a beautiful 
white in the winter. While it is difficult to see them when 
they are on the snow, they are easy to kill except in the mating 
season, as they do not flee when one approaches them, and it 
is often possible to knock them over with rocks and sticks. 
The mother birds are cunning when protecting their nests, 
however, endeavoring to lead visitors as far away as possible. 
Nature has provided these birds with a covering for their legs 
of hairlike feathers, to protect them from the severe cold. 
There are five varieties of grouse in Alaska, one of the best 
known being the blue grouse. 

Ducks, geese, plover, snipe, brant and many other species of 
birds are found upon almost all of the lakes and streams. 
Near St. Michael a tract of country equal in extent to fifty by 
one hundred miles square, and particularly fitted for the pur- 
pose by reason of its swamps and waterways, has wisely been 
set apart as breeding ground for the above species of feathered 
creatures. Hence, you see, duck shooting and kindred sports 
promise to continue good. 

Apropos of duck shooting, an Alaskan friend of mine 
related to me how an official tenderfoot from Washington, 
D. C, came out to his town on a Government mission. My 
friend took the official out duck shooting. The official had 
never before in his life fired a gun at a flying bird, but the 
first duck he shot at fell dead to the ground. 

"Well, you got him !" exclaimed my friend in surprise. 

"Yes," replied the tenderfoot, "but I might as well have 
saved my ammunition, the fall would have killed the duck 
anyb.ow !" 

His mental processes were about on a plane with the reason- 
ing of persons who believe that, as in the case of Alaska, a 
country can be wisely governed and provided for by statesmen 
who never saw it and live 5,000 miles away. I am glad to note 
that Franklin K. T.ane, United States Secretary of the Interior, 
now openly admits this view of the case. 

A strictly constructive program of development should be 
adopted for Alaska, a scheme that will release and bring the 



ALASKA 



127 



energies of Alaska herself into action. So far as possible the 
resources of Alaska should be set free from Government 
restrictions, and the development of the country left to Alas- 
kans. If the Government should build railroads in Alaska, 
let us be sure that it goes no further than that, giving every one 
an equal opportunity in the matter of rates and business rights, 
and keeping political favoritism out of the situation. Individ- 
uals prompted by individual interests will always develop a new 
country more rapidly than Government agencies, if the indi- 
viduals are not overtaxed or hampered by unjust and restricting 
laws. Remember that Alaska is the largest body of unused and 
neglected land now belonging to the United States. The demand 
for homes in the "States" is greater 
than the supply. Alaska should be opened 
up rapidly and upon a liberal and per- 
fectly fair basis of opportunity to all. 
Many brave and energetic people are 
already there, many more of like char- 
acter will follow when the Government's 
policy becomes sane and liberal instead 
of hurtful and restrictive. Above all, 
Alaska's need is to be constructed into 
a colony, with very limited connection 
with Washington, D. C., that the Alaskans 
themselves may develop and control their 
country according to their ambitions and 
needs. It is quite true that Alaska on 
August 24, 191 2, was created a Territory, 
with a Legislature of its own, but the act 
creating it a Territory states that "it shall 
be a Territory, under the laws of the 
United States, the government of which 
shall be organized and administered as 
provided by law." Hence the United 
States Government holds the whip hand. 
Mowever, the first Legislature that con- 
vened at Juneau, in the spring of 19 13, 

ALASKAN BALD EAGLE. 




128 ALASKA 

did well, though Congress has the right to annul any of its 
acts. 

Twenty-three members attended the meeting of the first 
Legislature. The election was held in November, 1912, and 
complete returns did not reach Juneau until February 12, 19 13, 
as the ballots and registers had to be transmitted through the 
mails overland in winter. If the vote had been close in any 
district there would have been trouble, for it was impossible 
to issue election certificates until the members apparently 
elected had arrived at the capital. Senators and Representa- 
tives from the Northwestern (Nome) District traveled with 
dog teams to the head of the sleigh-stage line at Fairbanks, a 
distance of from 700 to 900 miles, then followed the stage trip 
of 360 miles to \^aldez and a voyage by steamer from \"aldez 
to Juneau, about 700 miles. One Senator walked over the 
frozen trail several hundred miles, stopping at road houses on 
the way. His official mileage allowance was 15 cents a mile. 
The distance traveled by the members, to Juneau and returning 
to their homes, averaged 2,451 miles, or an average allowance 
for traveling expenses of $3^>7.65. On account of the time 
consumed this would hardly pay their board bill cii route. 

There is no strong political party in Alaska — the residents of 
a Territory do not vote in national elections — and so the main 
question in the mind of each Legislator was "What is best for 
Alaska?" instead of "How can I serve my party?" A lawyer 
was President of the Senate and a miner was Speaker of the 
House. The Legislature enacted eighty laws. The first law. 
No. I, granted women in Alaska the same right to vote as the 
men. This Legislature also furnished Alaska with long- 
needed public health statutes, laws for bank regulation and for 
relief of the poor ; created a territorial treasury, made impor- 
tant amendments to the mining laws, which had been imposed 
without regard to conditions in the Territory, enacted an 
employers' liability law and revised licenses and taxes. The 
Legislature was confronted with the difficulty of raising rev- 
enues in a Territory whose population is small and whose 
developed resources are already taxed heavily under L^nited 



ALASKA 129 

States laws for the benefit of our rich National Government, 
but the new revenue law is not regarded as being vicious and 
is expected to yield $240,000 a year. The Legislature author- 
ized appropriations amounting to $60,000 a year for two years. 
One of its most important acts was the passing of a poll tax 
law for the construction of highways. The new tax of $4 
per capita is being collected with little trouble, so universal is 
the demand for real roads in Alaska. Even with the draw- 
back of a Government 5,000 miles distant the Alaskans are 
hopeful. 

And now reluctantly my pen and Alaska part, but not for- 
ever. How can I forget this big, poor, rich Territory? So 
long as I can secure the public ear through my pen and voice 
will I try to help Alaska to her own, so long will I advocate 
the making of Alaska a colony of the United States instead 
of a Territory. This country of contradictions, with the Arctic 
Ocean on one side and warm Japan Current on the other ; this 
far North country of perpetual spring and winter ; this country 
of glaciers and strawberries ; this land of the midnight sun 
and sunless midday; this country of highest mountains and 
deepest sea; this country of longest rivers and fairest flowers; 
this country of wildest animals and tamest seals; this country 
where the reindeer gets fatter in the winter than in the sum- 
mer; this country of richest mines and poorest transportation; 
this country of bravest men and lowest outcasts — may you 
some day be intrusted to work out your own salvation, as you 
alone can do it. with Uncle Sam lending you a helping, not a 
hindering, hand. 



THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND 
REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 

Canal Zone, contains 286,j2o acres — United States paid Repub- 
lic of Panama $10,000,000 for the land, paid France $40,- 
000,000 for Canal work and Panama Raikvay — Panama 
Raihvay, 48 miles long — Canal jo miles long; cost to United 
States over $400,000,000, cost to France $j 40,000,000; total 
final cost, including interest, over $1,000,000,000 — People 
employed in Canal during construction 40,000 — Governor, 
Colonel George IV. Goethals. Republic of Panama, area 
^2,000 square miles — Present population, estimated, 400,000 
— Free public schools ^64 — Chief resources, bananas, coffee, 
cacao, coconuts, cattle, rubber, vanilla, sugar, valuable 
zvoods, tobacco, pearls, minerals, excepting coal — Exports, 
1913, $4,234,010; imports, $23,j4/,ooo — Capital, Panama 
City, population, estimated, jO,ooo — Governor, until 1916, 
Belisario Porras. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CANAL AND REPUBLIC. 

IT WAS my good fortune to go through the Panama 
Canal Zone on foot at the beginning of my travels 
in South America, over three years ago, and to study in 
this intimate way the work on what has been justly called the 
greatest engineering feat mankind ever attempted. When 
I was there in 191 1 the Big Ditch was only partly com- 
pleted, a vast army of men was busy with excavators, explo- 
sives and dredges, our engineers were in the midst of a strug- 
gle with Nature that called into play every resource of mod- 
ern science and skill. Returning to the Isthmus recently. I 
saw the barriers torn away and the Canal an accomplished 
fact, a wonderful new highway "free and open to the ves- 
sels of commerce and war of all nations on terms of entire 
equality," in accordance to the provisions of our treaties. 
Though cargo ships are being floated from ocean to ocean, 

130 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 131 

there is much work to be done and many details to be com- 
pleted before the plans of the Canal builders are fully realized. 
Nature has not yet been permanently subdued by the engineers. 
The great expenditure of treasure is by no means ended. But 
in giving the world this object lesson in American enterprise, 
ingenuity and perseverance, we have let no monetary con- 
siderations stand in our way. I can only repeat what I said 




PROFILE MAP OF THE PANAMA CANAL. 



132 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

two years ago in Illustrated South America. "We are short- 
ening distance and thereby saving time, and, consequently, 
lengthening human lives. We must take our reward and 
satisfaction in that. . . . The final, ultimate effect on 
humanity of the expenditure of money by Governments must, 
of course, be considered, rather than whether or not the 
expenditure will make returns in cash, for the civilizing and 
broadening of the minds of men is. in the final analysis, the 
true profit." 

The Panama Canal Zone is the most important of our 
cjutlying possessions. In many respects it is the most vitally 
valuable bit of land owned by the United States, internal or 
external. Because this peculiarly important possession of 
ours cuts directly through the heart of the Republic of 
Panama, from which country we obtained it, and because 
the United States has guaranteed the independence of this 
Republic in which the Canal Zone lies, it is only proper to 
take a glance at the land in which we have planted this great 
enterprise. The, Republic of Panama is distinctly a United 
States dependency, and when one promises to "shoulder the 




MR. BOYCE ON THE BAYANO RIVER, INTERIOR PANAMA. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 133 







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9 



NATIVE VILLAGE ().\ THE ISAVANO RIVER, INTERIOR OF 
PANAMA REPUBLIC. 

flights" of a country, however small, that country becomes 
interesting. 

The Rei)ublic of Panama is not of very great area, though 
it embraces within its limits practically the whole of the 
American Tsthnius. The area of the countrv is approximately 
32.000 square miles. This is an estimate only, as no actual, 
careful survey has ever been made. Its total land frontier — 
that is, between Costa Rica on the north and Colombia on 
the south — is about 350 miles, while its combined coast line 
u])on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans aggregates 1.245 miles. 
Its greatest length is about 430 miles, with a varying width of 
37 to 1 10 miles. Both coasts are studded with islands and 
indented with bays. The islands have been estimated to num- 
I)er something over 1,700, small and great. A backbone of 
mountains runs throughout the length of the country, rising 
into peaks at some points and falling to com]iarativelv low 
elevations at others, as in the pass of Culebra, which we 
pierced in digging the Canal. 

The country is bisected with hills and valleys, running up 
into the moimlains. with alknial stretches of level land along 
the seacoast upon eitlier side. From this crooked, rambling 



134 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

land 300 streams flow into the Pacific Ocean and 150 into the 
Atlantic Ocean waters. The slopes of the mountains and 
much of the low lands are covered with 'jungle and forest. 
This, briefly, is the topography of the Republic, the "baby 
brother" we have pledged ourselves to protect. 

It has improved since we began associating with it. The 
Panama of today "shows off well" in contrast with the Panama 
of yesterday. While little more than a decade has passed 
since it became self-governing, its improvement and progress 
are very marked. All investigators agree on this point. 
Panama people may not exactly like to have it openly stated, 
but the fact remains that the rapid and great improvement 
in their national life could hardly have taken place without the 
helpful influence of their big Northern neighbor. Before 
we indirectly helped them to independence and separation 
from Colombia the history of the Isthmus was one of bicker- 
ings and revolutions. Since the bloodless revolution of Novem- 
ber 3, 1903, which set them free, they have had peace, and 
have reaped the harvest of peace, which is progress. 

One important thing we did, we made it possible for them 
to disband their standing army. This they did in 1904. This 
was a distinct blessing, since it is a fact that the army in 
almost every Latin-American country is a bone of conten- 
tion between the rival political parties. Whichever party 
wins over the army is practically assured of gaining the Presi- 
dency and offices, and incidentally the treasury. Within a year 
after Panama gained its independence the Commander-in- 
Chief of the army laid a plot to overthrow the President of 
the Rejiublic. The United States Government told him plainly 
that if he made a single move we would take charge. He 
"wilted" and quit. The standing army was no longer of any 
use in gathering political spoils, so it was disbanded. In 
point of fact, the Republic of Panama needs no army, since its 
peace and defense are guaranteed by the United States. 

The human element of this tropical dependency of ours 
consisted of 386,745 persons, according to the last census taken, 
which was in 191 1. This included 36,000 Indians, and 50.000 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 135 

people under the jurisdiction of the Canal Zone. The latter 
number, which has greatly diminished since the practical com- 
pletion of the Canal, should, of course, be deducted from the 
enumeration. Still, counting its natural increase since the last 
census, the Republic probably contains close to 400,000 people. 
' The native inhabitants are mingled Spanish, Indian and Xegro. 
speaking a Spanish dialect. There are some immigrants from 
Europe and the United States, and some 3.500 Chinese. 

The country is divided into seven provinces, administered 
by Governors appointed by the President of the Republic. 
The principal towns are Panama City, upon the Pacific side, 
with an estimated present population of 50,000; Colon, on 
the Atlantic, with 25,000 or more ; David, in the northern 
part, with something over 10,000; Los Santos with 8,000; 
Santiago, with some 7,000, and Bocas del Toro, built up by the 
banana interests of the United Fruit Company, with 6,000. 
Some of these cities have grown with great rapidity since 
the advent of the Canal builders in 1904. The city of Panama 
then had about 20,000 inhabitants, an old-fashioned, unsani- 
tary Spanish town. Now it enjoys most of the conveniences of 
other modern cities, including taxicabs and an electric street 
railway. Colon also is rapidly being modernized. Their near- 
ness to the eastern and western terminals of the great Canal 
of course stimulates them ; to be near a big, vital thing like the 
Canal naturally "starts things." 

However, outside the big centers, the wheels do not turn 
very rapidly. The great lack is adequate transportation 
facilities from the interior to the ports. One sees far too 




■'^ DISTANT \li:W OF THE CITY OF PANAMA 



136 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 




CORNER OF A PUBLIC SQUARE IN PANAMA CITY. 

much produce going to market on pack-ponies and two- 
wheeled ox-carts over very poor roads. When Panama became 
a repubHc there was scarcely a road in it worthy of the 
name. Recently they have begun to "get busy" in road-build- 
ing, the Government assisting with large sums of money. 
They have improved the cities, and are beginning to realize 
that to sustain the cities they must help the country, where 
agriculture has been in a primitive, backward condition. 

Since the North Americans arrived in 1904, the Panama 
people have constructed municipal buildings, including school- 




RAILWAV STATION, PANAMA CITY. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 137 

houses, in all of the important 
towns; a $1,000,000 national 
palace and theater in Panama 
City, a national institute for boys 
costing $800,000, and numerous 
other fine improvements, hut 
they are painfully "shy" on rail- 
roads. Outside the Canal Zone 
line, they have only about 150 
miles of track, consisting mainly 
of the United Fruit Company's 
road and branches in the pnn- 
ince of Bocas del Toro, prin- 
cipally a banana-carrying road. However, the present admin- 
istration of the Republic is planning the building of several 
electric lines, which, when they materialize, will aid the much 
needed development of the country. 

They have a lot of resources in the Reptiblic ; bananas 
galore, coffee and cacao, sugar, tobacco, mahogany and other 
valuable woods, and almost everv common mineral except 
coal. It is an old volcanic region with a rich soil, and all it 
needs is the application of muscle and brains. It is begin- 




CITV JIALL, PANAMA CITY. 




A GLIMPSE OF COLON HARBOR 



138 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 




ning to look as if these requisites 
were going to be brought to 
bear. 

They have some wise laws 
and a pretty sound constitution. 
The President of the Republic 
is elected for a term of four 
years and cannot succeed him- 
self, which tends to curtail politi- 
cal plotting. He is elected by 
popular vote, and is assisted by 
three A'ice-Presidents and a 
Cabinet of five members. The 
law-making body consists of a 
single National Assembly con- 
taining twenty-eight members 
elected by the people. The 
present incumbent of the presi- 
dential chair is Dr. Belisario 
Porras, an able and progressive 
man. 

Financially the little Republic 
is in good condition, its total 
governmental revenues for 1913 amounting to $5,300,000, 
with a budget of expense estimated at $3,840,000. It has no 
national debt and is not likely to contract one. Evidently we 
are to be free of monetary trouble concerning it, at least for 
some time to come. Agriculturally the soil of the Republic 
has hardly been scratched ; its immense resources in fruits 
have only been developed in respect to the banana, the United 
Fruit Company having shipped from the Bocas del Toro dis- 
trict alone last year over 6,000,000 bunches of that fruit ; it 
has capacity for the raising of beef cattle by the million, 
though it has at present probably not more than 100,000 within 
its limits. Plainly the Republic has a future if it can once 
get started, and there are signs that it is getting under way. 
This is a very brief outline of the country in which we 



UNITED STATE.S LEGATION BUILDING, 

PANAMA CITY. BUILT BY 

THE FRENCH. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 139 

have planted our g-isi-antic entei"i)rise. the Canal, the eountry 
we have contracted to protect and to insure a continuous 
peace. 

At i)resent the task is almost nothing; what the future may 
hring forth no man can tell. ( )ur guardianship of the Repub- 
lic is a mild one, but necessity might compel us to shut out 
intruders, safeguard the health of the Republic, or supervise 
its elections, though it is not the wish or intention of the 
people of the United States to annex Panama. At present we 
have all the fish we can fry ; what may be the inclinations or 
desires of our children's children, however, we do not know. 
We hope it may not be conquest, only helpfulness and peace. 

Having hurriedly sketched the country containing the 
Canal, we will return to the "Great Furrow" itself. It is worth 
looking at and justifies "tall talk." 

The history of the Isthmus and the building of the Canal 
is a kind of wonder story, the story of a world-dream that 
continued through 400 years and finally came true. I he 
early Spanish explorers had a vision of it. Balboa's 
first report to Spain, after he had climbed the forest-covered 
hills and discovered the Pacific, was accompanied by a recom- 
mendation that a canal be immediately dug across the Isthmus. 
Evidently Balboa, or rather Saavedra, his lieutenant, who 




A STREET IN COLON. 



I40 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

made the suggestion, did not wholly appreciate how difficult 
the job would be. What the Spaniard had in view was a 
sea-level canal, and when one considers, for instance, the 
excavation of Culebra Cut with the tools of Balboa's day, 
one sees that the explorer's recommendation was slightly 
premature. It is an interesting fact, however, that in Bal- 
boa's time the hydraulic lock system had been invented. The 
great locks of the Panama Canal are the same in principle as a 
lock produced four centuries ago by Leonardo da Vinci, the 
great Italian artist-engineer, for lifting vessels over eleva- 
tions — a most important discovery, but the Spaniards seem 
not to have considered it. At any rate, they dismissed the 
canal project ; some historians say because of the adverse 
influence of the Church. The wise Spanish bishops, quoting 
Sacred Scripture, declared, "What God hath joined together 
let no man put asunder." Then again, long-haired profes- 
sors told the public that if a canal were digged across the 
Isthmus it would change the Gulf Stream and make an iceberg 
out of England ! Their acumen was about on a par with that 
of a certain Western woman who, when told of the trouble and 
unsanitary conditions at first encountered on the Isthmus, said, 
"Well, if it was so hot and unhealthy, why on earth did they 
go away ofif down there to dig the Canal, anyhow !" 

As was natural, almost immediately upon its discovery 
the Isthmus of Panama became an important trade route 
between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The principal modes of 
transit were mule trains, canoes and small boats part of the 
way, and often human backs. Out of this traffic grew the 
first European settlement on the mainland of America, the 
old city of Panama, founded in 15 19. For over 150 years 
Panama remained the chief city on the Pacific Coast. The 
Eurojicaiis found it difficult to believe that there wasn't some 
natural waterway across the Isthmus. In fact, some of the 
early maj)s published in Europe showed an imaginary "vStrait 
of Panama." Finally they got it through their heads that 
the barrier between the two oceans was a real one. After 
that the idea of cutting a way through never wholly died. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 141 

Surveys were first made by the vSpanish in 1581. They 
reported that the scheme was impossible. Then the idea sim- 
mered for over a century, when it took root in the mind of a 
famous Scotchman. W'ilham Paterson, the founder of the 
Bank of Engkmd. Paterson's project was to estabhsh a set- 
tlement on the Isthnuis, cut a canal, and through its con- 
trol "hold the key to the commerce of the world." The great 
banker's idea is the one we should now develop, by making 
the Canal a port free of import and export custom duties, as 
I will later point out. Paterson's attempt failed; at that time 
the carrying out of so difficult and tremendous an engineer- 
ing feat was impossible. 

Again the Spanish surveyed the Isthmus for a canal. That 
was in 1771. The movement ended in smoke, and once 
more the idea simmered. Then in 1855 Americans opened a 
railroad across the Isthmus. The exploration and surveys 
for this railroad are said to have cost the life of a man for 
every tie. 

Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the great Suez Canal, 
formed a company in Paris in 1877 to dig a shipway through 
the Panama Isthmus. Actual work was started in the next 
year. A red letter day on the calendar of the De Lesseps 
company was January 20, 18S0, when, in the presence of a 
distinguished gathering, the engineers fired the first blast for 
tearing a way through Culebra Mountain. But after seven 
years, wdien the impossibility of building a sea-level canal 
within the estimated twelve years became apparent, De 
Lesseps quit the project. It was announced that the work 
could not be completed for the estimated cost of $240,000,000, 
for the very good reason that $300,000,000 had already been 
spent. The company went into bankruptcy. In 1894 a new 
French company started work again, but in five years" lime 
little was accomplished, and finally operations ceased. 



CHAPTER IL 

BUILDING AND OPERATION. 

EVERY one is so familiar with the story of how we 
ohtained the Canal Zone and "made the dirt fly" that it is 
not necessary to go into extended detail here. In 1904 the 
rights and property of the French companies were taken over 
at an agreed price of $40,000,000, that heing the extravagantly 
appraised value of the initial excavation work, the Panama 
Railroad, maps and data, buildings and machinery. Terri- 
torial rights came to the United States from a treaty with the 
new Republic of Panama, which came into being through a 
revolt from Colombia. Colombia had refused to grant us 
the rights necessary to insure our position in constructing the 
Canal. The treaty with Panama included the payment of 
$10,000,000 and an annuity of $250,000, to begin nine years 
after the treaty was signed. At the conclusion of negotiations 
the rival Nicaraguan Canal project w'as discarded and the 
United States was ready to begin digging, assured of the use 
and absolute control of a canal zone ten miles wide across 
the Isthmus, having an area of 286,720 acres, and jurisdic- 
tion over waters three miles from either side of the zone. By 
a new treaty recently signed between the United States and 
Panama, we are given sovereign rights in the waters of Colon 
and Ancon, the harbor towns at the ends of the Canal. This 
settles the last question as to complete American control of 
the waterway. 

The decision that made Panama a high-level lock canal 
was not made by Congress imtil 1906. In the meantime yel- 
low fever and malaria had caused alarming mortality, the 
same terrors which baffled the French having appeared in the 
workers' camps, and the problem of safeguarding health 
loomed up as greater than the one of engineering. Vigorous 

142 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 143 




sanitary measures were under- 
taken. Colonel \\'illiam C. Gorgas 
began his remarkable work, and 
through his untiring efforts and 
those of his able assistants, the 
Canal Zone was made a safe place 
in which to work. Without these 
brave, skillful men of the medical 
department, the building of the 
Canal would not have been accom- 
plished. The death rate in the 
Canal Zone is lower than in most 
American cities. 

In 1907 came the man who has 
really built the Canal. Colonel 
George W. Goethals of the United 
States army headed a commission 
which took the place of the first 
one, on which men had been ap- 
pointed from civil life. Colonel 
Goethals and the new Commission have been united in action 
and unusually efficient. Colonel Goethals is now Governor 
of the Canal Zone. 

When the Government steamship Ancon made her trip 
through the Canal August 15, 1914, officially opening the new 
ocean highway to traffic, many notable people were there. 
The most modest man was one holding an umbrella over his 
head and keeping as much in the background as possible. 
That was Colonel Goethals. His country has learned to appre- 
ciate his worth, quiet though he has been about the work and 
the trials he has had. The task in itself has been of a mag- 
nitude that is diUicult to realize, and in addition there have 
been the influences of tropical conditions, of Government con- 
trol and of uncertain labor markets to deal with. For the 
efficient Goethals and those under him there is all honor. The 
mistakes that have been charged have been dwarfed by the 
successes of the herculean undertaking, and in the history of 



COLONEL WILLIAM C. GORGAS, THE 

MAN WHO MADE THE CANAL 

ZONE SANITARY. 



144 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

the Canal's construction, we are glad to state, there is not the 
smallest blot of proved corruption or graft, excepting in the 
company stores run by the Panama Railroad, which is owned 
by the United States Government. 

At times as many as 45,000 men have been employed on 
the Canal. The average number has been 40,000. It should 
be kept in mind, too. that the work had to be carried on at a 
distance of two thc^usand miles from the base of supplies. 

When the Canal was officially opened, a little more than 




COLONliL GEORGE W. (iOETHALS, CHFEF BUILDER OF THE CANAL. 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 145 



I N. ' 


i« 






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N^^" ^ .' 


';i^':^''^'^>^-^*""^ 7 


hHHI^p^^^^^B 






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THE FIRSI' IJOAT, A GOVERNMENT LIGHTER, PASSING THROUGH 
MIRAFLORES LOCKS. 



ten years after American work began on the Isthmus, over 
$400,000,000 had been expended by our Government. Much 
remained to be done, incUuhng dredging, the extent of which 
nobody could forecast, deepening of the channel for the larg- 
est ships, completion of fortifications and buildings, beautifica- 
tion and numerous other "final touches." It was originally 
estimated that it would cost $157,000,000 to build the Canal. 
After spending a good deal of time on the Isthmus three 
years ago, investigating and drawing conclusions to the best 
of my judgment, I made this estimate: ''When the project 
is entirely finished, over $1,000,000,000 will have been invested 
by the United States and France." I have no reason to change 
my opinion now, when the total already is $740,000,000, add- 
ing the $400,000,000 we have si)ent to the $340,000,000 spent 
by the French, and adding interest on the money spent up to 



146 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

date, it will be seen that the total rises already close to 
$1,000,000,000. 

The original estimate on the cost of digging missed the 
mark so widely because the American engineers were unac- 
quainted with the materials of which the whole country of the 
Canal Zone is made — lava ash. Before the major portion of 




THE GREAT CITCARACHA .SLIDE. 



the excavating was done it was necessary to remove many 
million cubic yards of slide material upon which the engineers 
had never figured. They learned that in order to reduce the 
pressure .so the water would hold the soil back they must 
materially increase the excavation, and even with the grade 
greatly reduced the slides came with disconcerting frequency. 
When the Big Ditch was opened to traffic. Colonel Goethals 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 



M7 



pointed out that the earth had not reached a state of equil- 
ibrium, and that probably it would be necessary to continue 
dredging for many months. It was hoped that these earth 
movements would not be so extensive as to interfere with 
navigation, though the channel at several points in Culcbra 
Cut necessarily would be reduced consideral)ly in width for 
a while. Just two months after the opening of the water- 
way, rains caused a serious landslide north of (iold Mill, where 
the earth reaches its greatest height on the Isthmus. Thou- 
sands of cubic vards of rock and dirt entered the channel. 




lil.OVVING ri* THE DIKE AT MIRAFLORES W'lTH 4O,O00 POrXIXS OF DYNAMITE, 
BEGINNING THE INFLOW OF WATER CONNECTING THE TWO OCEANS. 



completely blocking it for a distance of 1,000 feet. Ships 
passing through when the slide occurred were forced to wait 
until the great dredges could reopen the channel, an oi)eration 
U'hich consumed much valuable time. 

The total excavation in the Canal has been over 232,000,- 
000 cubic yards, with C'ulebra Cut, nine miles long, the most 



148 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

difificult and uncertain part of the work. Here over 30,000,000 
cubic yards of material, lying outside the intended banks of 
the Canal, was swept down into the cut. The excavation in 
the cut represents about one-half of the digging done by 
Americans. Slides frequently put the railroad system out of 
commission. Often they wrecked dirt trains and steam shovels. 
The work of removing the debris at Culebra took up many 
months. Colonel Goethals did the best he could, however. As 
an illustration, in 1909 the cost of removing a cubic yard of 
slide material was around 78 cents for the whole cut. With the 
slides more troublesome in 1912 the cost was forced down 
to 55 cents. Fourteen per cent of the total excavation of 
191 3 was from slides. The Canal locks were ready ten months 
before Culebra was in shape. But for the slides, ships would 
have been going through that much earlier. And when the 
passage of ships became possible, dredges were still at work in 
the cut. 

The length of the Canal from deep water to deep water 
is fifty miles, and from the two shore lines, forty miles. It 
takes ten hours to make the trip. ( It requires only sixteen 
hours for ships to pass through the Suez Canal, eighty-six 
miles long, but there are no locks.) \'essels passing from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific successively go through the approach 
channel in Limon Bay, onward seven miles to the Gatun 
locks, where three locks lift them eighty-five feet to the level 
of Gatun Lake ; thence through the lake to Bas Obispo and 
Culebra Cut ; thence through the cut for nine miles to Pedro 
Miguel, where they are lowered thirty feet by lock to a small 
lake; thence one and a half nfiles to Miraflores, where two 
locks in series drop them to the Pacific level ; passing out into 
the Pacific through a channel about eight and a half miles 
long. This channel has a bottom width of 500 feet. The chan- 
nel in Culebra Cut has a minimum bottom width of 300 feet. 

Gatun Lake was formerly the valley through which the 
turbulent Chagres River flowed into the sea. The problem of 
controlling the flood waters of the river was most diflicult. 
for the heavy tropical rains come down the mountain sides 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 149 

into the narrow valley with such force that the river has 
been known to rise more than twenty-five feet in twenty-four 
hours. To control the flood the great Gatun Dam was built, 
holding back the waters and forming Gatun Lake, which has 
risen to cover about 164 square miles. The spillway of Gatun 
Dam, made of concrete on a rock foundation, permits the flow 
of 154,000 cubic feet per second. The normal flow through 
this spillway operates the hydro-electric plant which supplies 
power and light for the operation of the Canal, there being 
enough power available for any probable demand for years 
to come. Nearly everything about the Canal is run by elec- 
tricity, and recently the engineers have been considering sub- 
stituting electric power for steam on the Panama Railroad. 
The entire length of the Canal is so well lighted that pas- 
sage at night is practically as safe as during the day. 




THE COMPLETED GATUN LOCK.'^, LOOKING N(mTII TOWARD THE 
ATLANTIC ENTRANCE. 



I50 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 



In passing through Gatun Lake, vessels get valuahle ser- 
vice for which no additional charge is made. One of the most 
expensive items of salt-water navigation is the accumulation 
of barnacles on ships' bottoms, which in time become so 
numerous as to impede the progress of even a powerful steam- 
ship. For this reason ships have to go into dry dock and 
get scraped at regular intervals. Fresh water, however, is 
fatal to the barnacles. The vessels going through Gatun Lake 
are thus relieved of their troublesome burdens of marine 
mollusks. 

The Gatun locks comprise the largest monolithic concrete 
structure ever built. Like the locks at the Pacific end, they 
are built in pairs, to reduce the danger of accident and increase 
efficiency. Five different lengths of chamber are provided by 
intermediate gates, so that there is no waste of water or time, 
such as would be the case were a 500-foot ship lifted in a 
1, 000- foot chamber. The weight of the largest Gatun lock 




STEAMSHIP "aNCON" PASSING THROTtgH GATUN LOCKS, JUNE II, I914. 
THE FIRST LARGE Sllll' TO PASS THROUGH. 



y 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 151 




THE STEAMSHIP "SANTA CLARA ENTERING MIRAELORES LOCKS UNDER 
TOW OF ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES, JUNE I9, I914. 

gate is 1,483,700 pounds, and it cost a little over four cents 
a pound. There are forty-six lock gates in the Canal, all 
made of steel plates, riveted to structural steel frames. Their 
total weight is 118,488,100 pounds. Vessels are raised or 
lowered in the locks at the rate of three feet a minute. All 
gates and valves are operated by electricity. 

\'essels are not permitted to pass through the locks under 
their own power, but are towed by electric locomotives, four 
to a ship. These are among the most interesting features of 
the Canal, but one does not hear them called electric locomo- 
tives there. When I was a boy in Pennsylvania I used to 
like to follow the tow path of the canal until I met a canal 
boat, and got a chance to help drive the mules. It was nearly 
as much fun as riding the elephant on circus day. In my mind 
11 



152 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

the mule is identified with canals. So I was not surprised 
that everybody else, including the makers of the electric loco- 
motives, as they watched these wonderful little engines at 
work, spoke of them familiarly as "the mules." 

The "mules" cost $13,217 each, and there are three dozen 
of them. They run on tracks laid on the lock walls and have 
gear wheels operating on racks between the rails, to keep 
them from being pulled off the tracks by the towing strain. 
Should a towing line break, the ship can be prevented from 
colliding with the lock gates by chain fenders which extend a 
hundred feet ahead of each gate. Emergency dams can be 
swung into place in the event of any accident to the gates. 

There are certain works which were in use in the final 
stages of the construction work of the Canal that can be 
cleared away. One of these is the pontoon bridge. The road- 
way of the Panama Railroad had to be shifted many times 
during the construction, but it was an important aid, and con- 
tinues to be. The sight of a train crossing the pontoon bridge 
at Paraiso was novel. 

At Colon, on the Atlantic, or rather at Cristobal, they 
were recently working on the big coaling station, building the 
reloading bridge. The station at Colon has a storage capacity 
of five hundred thousand tons of coal, and the station at P)al- 
boa, at the Pacific end, has a capacity of three hundred thou- 
sand tons. The Canal Commission \y\\\ sell coal to any vessels 
wanting it, but there will always be a hundred thousand tons 
in reserve for the United States navy, ready for emergency. 

I noted also the work being done on the wireless stations 
at Colon and Balboa. A\'ireless telegraphy has so many uses 
that the Government found it necessary to assert its right to 
control this means of communication. \A'ith the responsibili- 
ties that it has at Panama it could not afford that its e(|uip- 
ment should be incomplete. The Canal stations are now in 
communication with the great tower near \\'ashington, D. C. 



CHAPTER III. 

TOLLS AND A FREE PORT. 

IT IS difficult to estimate what the traffic through the Canal 
is going to be in the future. The European nations 
having gone to war just when the big waterway was opened 
for their cargoes has upset all calculations. That the tolls 
would pay operating expenses seemed doubtful. However, 
though the European war had largely curtailed shipping activi- 
ties, Colonel Goethals reported as this book was sent to press, 
that the Canal traffic was exceeding expectations, indicating 
that within a year the tolls might pay operating expenses, but, 
of course, no interest on the enormous investment. 

In accordance with the Canal Act of August 24, 1912, the 
following rates of tolls are to be paid by vessels passing 
through the Canal : 

1. On merchant vessels carrying passengers or cargo, 
$1.20 per net vessel ton — each 100 cubic feet — of actual earn- 
ing capacity. 

2. On vessels in ballast, without passengers or cargo, 40 
per cent less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passen- 
gers or cargo. 

3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hos- 
pital ships and supply ships, 50 cents per displacement ton. 

4. Upon army and navy transports, colliers, hospital ships 
and supply ships, $1.20 per net ton, the vessels to be measured 
by the same rules as are employed in determining the net 
tonnage of merchant vessels. 

For a fair-sized freight vessel, it is estimated, the tolls 
amount to about $5,000. This is, of course, only a nominal 
charge, considering that ships save a 10,000-mile voyage around 
South America, but it is probably all the traffic will stand. 
Operating expenses of the Canal are estimated at about 

153 



154 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

$4,000,000 a year. The interest on the huge investment, how- 
ever, is $20,000,000 a year, indicating a continuous fixed charge 
of nearly $25,000,000 per year, which in time will bring the 
American cost of the Canal to my estimate of $1,000,000,000. 

The Canal rules require tolls to be paid in cash, except 
that in the case of steamship companies having boats fre- 
quently using the Canal they may be paid by check or draft, 
if prompt payment of same has been assured by depositing 
with the Canal authorities at least $15,000 worth of accepta- 
ble bonds. 

Upon my last visit I found that the Canal Zone had 
changed materially since I first saw it. Then it was filled with 
clusters of buildings, created by the Canal Commission, in 
which to house the workers and ofiicers. And there were the 
native villages and the natives themselves. Some of these 
villages were along the route of the waterway, and as the 
construction progressed they were drowned out, or would 
have been, had not the Canal Commission moved them away. 
It is the idea of Colonel Goethals, the chief builder of the 
Canal and present Governor, that the Zone should be denuded 
of human habitations. That is naturally the military idea, but 
the Canal is for commerce. So on either side of the Canal I 
found only tropical jungles and wilderness. Many people 
have argued that the Zone lands ought to be settled upon and 
cultivated by Americans. This will be done some day. Colonel 
Goethals is firmly of the opinion that this priceless piece of 
work can better be defended by leaving the obstructing jungle 
on either hand. Knowing what that jungle is, T agree with 
him that it would beat barbed wire entanglements in keei:)ing 
a foe at a distance, but this is a peace Canal. 

()ne of the new sights to me was the fortifications in the 
Bay of Panama. The fortifications are upon the islands of 
Perico, Naos, and Flamenco, which were ceded to the United 
States as part of the Canal Zone. The islands occupy a posi- 
tion in the Pacific commanding the western approach to the 
Canal. Some of the largest guns and mortars ever con- 
structed are already being placed in position upon these 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC i 



00 



islands. At Balboa, on tlie mainland, another set of fortifi- 
cations will be established, while on the Atlantic side there 
will be forts on Margarita Point, north of Colon, another on 
Toro Point, across the bay from Colon, and one on the main- 
land at Colon. In the neighborhood of the canal locks at 
Catun, IMiratiores. and Pedro Miguel, there will be con- 




VTEW IN TTTF JT'XGT.F OF THF PAXA^tA T^EPriUJC. 



156 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

structed strong field defenses to provide against possible 
attacks by landing forces. In these fortifications strong sec- 
tions of the United States army are to be maintained. Of 
course, detailed description or photographs of these fortifica- 
tions are not permitted by the Government, which is right. 
However, we may rest assured that big things are being done, 
since about $4,000,000 has already been expended on the 
project. Congress having appropriated over $10,000,000 for 
these prime defensive works. 

But to revert to the Canal. I do not want to ofifend my 
South American friends by calling any of their countries a 
part of our own chain of United States colonies ; they are not ; 
but in watching the first freight vessels go through the Canal, 
and in talking of prospective cargoes, it occurred to me that 
these West Coast countries might, in point of results, be con- 
sidered our commercial colonies, or, if they prefer to put it the 
other way, they might call us their commercial colony. The 
Canal traffic, at any rate, is going to bring us closer together. 

I heard, while at the Canal, that the port of Guayaquil, 
Ecuador, at last is going to sanitate itself so as to get some of 
the benefits of the Big Ditch, and to insure the better mar- 
keting of its cacao, rubber, cofifee, hides, ivory nuts, and 
Panama hats, in the United States. Peru is also considering 
making Callao a port capable of taking care of big vessels 
that could bring out her cargoes of copper, wool and sugar. 
Chile, since my visit to that country, has made a good deal of 
headway with the port of Valparaiso and has also improved 
some of her other ports. Chilean nitrates were among the first 
cargoes that went through the Canal, and these are being 
followed by copper from the great Guggenheim mines, and 
by other products. This is only the beginning of a vast vol- 
ume of commerce flowing between South America and the 
United States. Especially must this come true since the 
European war opens the way for augmented trade between 
our nation and the republics to the south of us. 

In order to stimulate this trade, and make our huge Canal 
investment profitable to us, I am confidently putting forward 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 157 

a plan to make the Canal Zone a free port, and, thruugli the 
influence of this fact, to create a world-wide city at the 
Canal for the exchange free of duty of our commodities with 
the South American repuhlics and other nations. 

I here quote from an address which I made a year ago 
before the Southern Commercial Ct)ngress at Mobile, Ala- 
bama, and which was published afterward by the United 
States Senate as Senate DociDiieiit j^;^^: 

"The definition of a free port is: *A harbor where the 
ships of all nations may enter on paying a moderate toll and 
load and unload. The free ports constitute great depots 
where goods are stored without paying duty ; these goods 
may be reshipped free of duty. The intention of having free 
ports is to stimulate and facilitate exchange and trade.' 

"There is no reason why the Canal Zone cannot be made 
into a city of 500,000 people in twenty years and produce 
sufficient income from dockage, tolls, taxes, rents, leases, etc.. 




UPPER GATES OF GATUN LOCKS. PARTLY OPEN. TAKEN P.EFORE WATER 
WAS LET INTO LOCKS. 



158 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

to pay the interest on at least the original capital invested by 
the United States. We have 286,720 acres inside the Canal 
Zone. Already many millions of dollars have been spent to 
make the Zone sanitary and a desirable place to live in the 
year round. Nearly all of this will be a complete loss unless 
we build a great city there. The Panama Railroad, for which 
we paid millions and spent millions more to move and rebuild, 
will be a 'white elephant' on our hands, on the basis of invest- 
ment, unless we build a big city at that point. 

"Through the stimulus arising from making the Canal Zone 
a free port, a great commercial city can be built along the 
whole Canal from one end to the other with docks everywhere. 
This city would become a great commercial clearing house 
not only for the merchants and manufacturers of North, Cen- 
tral and South America, but for the whole world. Trade in 
every republic on the American Continent is necessarily more 
or less restricted by a protective tarifif, therefore, we need one 
spot, at least, for free exchange. It it just as necessary as a 
clearing house for the great banks in our big cities. 

"Remember, the entire Canal is a land-locked, fresh-water 
harbor, berthing the largest vessels in the world, where bar- 
nacles can be scraped off the bottoms of ships — an advantage 
possessed by only one other great inland port city in the world. 
The building of a big metropolis on the Canal Zone is no 
experiment, no wild theory. It has been successfully worked 
out and proved by Germany and England and a numljer of 
smaller countries. 

"The only way to create a big city at the central ])()int 
between North and South America, the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, the Far East and the Far West, is to make the Canal 
Zone a free city and free port. By this I mean free from 
import or export duties into and out from the Canal Zone. 
This will not affect the primary question of tolls for passing 
through the Canal. If created a free port and protected 
through international treaty, so it could not be aft"ected by 
changes in our administration or home policies, merchants and 
manufacturers from all over the world would build factories 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 159 

and warehouses and establisli Ijranches and agencies at this 
World Center for quick distribution, delivery and sale. Many 
South Americans would establish agencies and branches there 
to reach the world's commerce. In fact, it would become an 
immense World's Department Store where everything for the 
use of the people of all nations could be found. Tt would 




PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS AT NIGHT, SHOWING ELECTRK AL ILLUMINATION 

OE THE CANAL. 

become the greatest transshipping i)ort in the world, especially 
as many boats suitable for the Pacific ( )cean are not sea- 
worthy or insurable on the Atlantic Ocean. 

"As lawyers put it : 'What you have been saying is testi- 
mony — give us evidence of what a free port or city will do 
toward creating a metrojwlis of half a million in a few years.' 
Here is the evidence: Hamburg, Germany; Copenhagen, 
Denmark; (libraltar; Hong Kong (formerly Chinese, now 
British) ; Singapore; Punta Arenas, Chile; Aden, on the Red 
Sea. and the Island of St. Thomas, near Porto Rico. 



i6o PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

"After Great Britain had taken Gibraltar from Spain, and 
that country would not deal with Gibraltar, the Sultan of 
Morocco forced the British Government, in 1705, to make a 
free port of Gibraltar by refusing to supply the food necessary 
to maintain the fortress, unless all import and export duty was 
taken off. The law of necessity caused the most powerful 
Government in the world, more than two hundred years ago, to 
establish the first free zone on a little rock pile three miles long 
by one-half mile wide, controlling the entrance to the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. Here is Lesson No. i, that should not be over- 
looked. Today there is a population of 27,000 at Gibraltar 
and over 4,000,000 ship tonnage is cleared yearly. As there 
is no duty, only a tax on tobacco and liquors, there are no 
statistics on the annual business. 

"Hamburg, Germany (before the 1914 war), was a notable 
example of the benefits of free exchange. Hamburg, through 
this wise policy, became the greatest port in Europe. In 1888, 
2,500 acres of the harbor of this inland city were set apart as 
a free harbor, where ships could unload and load without 
custom duties. A gigantic system of docks, basins and quays 
was constructed at an initial cost of $35,000,000, which at 
present-day cost would be double. A portion of the old town 
containing 24,000 people was cleared to make room for this 
great project. After that Hamburg grew enormously, reach- 
ing the third position as a port in the world, with over 1,000,- 
000 population, being the second largest city in Germany. 
Without question the free zone of the harbor had a great 
influence on the expansion of Hamburg as a port. 

"Copenhagen is the most important commercial town of 
Denmark. The trading facilities were greatly augmented in 
1894 by making a portion of the harbor a free port. It has 
had a marked effect on the trade of Copenhagen and Denmark. 

"Hong Kong Island and City is a British possession 
acquired from China in 1841. Hong Kong is a free port and 
has no customhouse, and its commercial activities are chiefly 
distributive for a large portion of the Far East, much as the 
Panama Canal Zone would become if made a free port. The 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC i6i 

only commodity that pays a duty at Hong Kong is opium. 
Owing to the fact that it is a free port, official figures on its 
trade cannot be had, as in the case of ports that collect custom 
duties, but since it was made a free port the population has 
increased from a few thousand to 456.739. From this port 
there is an immense exchange of commodities between (ireat 
Britain and her colonies, the ports of China, Japan and the 
United States. This fact, investigation shows, is largely due 
to the advantages arising from the fact that the port of Hong 
Kong is free from custom duties to all nations. 

"Singapore is another good example. It is the capital of 
the British Straits Settlements, and lies about midway between 
Hong Kong and Calcutta, India, and close to the Malay 
Archipelago. It is less than 100 miles north of the equator, 
or 500 miles farther south than the Panama Canal Zone. It 
has good advantages of position, but above all, the policy of 
absolute free trade has made Singapore the center of a trans- 
shipping trade that is surpassed in the Orient only by Hong 
Kong and one or two of the great Chinese ports. The con- 
tinuously rapid growth of Singapore and the Straits Settle- 
ments, of which it is the capital, has fully demonstrated the 
wisdom of this policy. In 1819 when the region was ceded to 
Great Britain that portion of the country had almost no busi- 
ness or population. At present Singapore's free exports and 
imports exceed $500,000,000 annually, or about one-seventh 
of the total imports and exports of the whole United States. 
There are no custom duties except on opium. The population 
is about 275,000. Neither Hong Kong nor Singapore is as 
well situated for international trade or enjoys as good and 
healthful climate as the Panama Canal Zone. 

"Port Said is another case in point. The building of the 
Suez Canal created the city of Port Sa'id on a sandpile at the 
entrance to the Canal from the Mediterranean Sea, with fresh 
water 125 miles away. It is about the "livest wire" of any 
city in the world — at least, that I have ever visited. It has 
over 100,000 population, and except for an Egyptian duty on 



i62 PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 

many articles would be a great trading center for others than 
tourists. 

"Aden, situated on a strip of British territory in Arabia, 
on the Red Sea, where nothing grows and fresh water must 
be brought a long distance, has 50,000 population on account 
of its being a free port and city. 

"Punta Arenas, Chile, on the Straits of Magellan, the farth- 
est south of any city in the world, is a free port and city, 
and has a population of 15,000. I was surprised at its impor- 
tance and its tine stone buildings and good streets. The only 
local support of Punta Arenas is wool and sheep, mostly from 
the old Patagonia country of Argentina and the island of 
Tierra del Fuego. Its importance arises chiefly from its being 
a free port, permitting a Chilean city to trade duty free with 
Argentina. 

"The free exchange of commodities, on account of there 
being no duty, import or export, put the island of St. Thomas, 
near Porto Rico, belt^iging to Denmark, on the map. It is a 
good example of what no export or import duty will do for a 
poor, out-of-the-way island. Nearly every excursion to the 
West Indies docks there to trade. Its one port carries the 
largest stock and does the greatest Panama hat trade in the 
world. Many vessels coal there. It has a great trade with all 
the West India Islands. 

"England has tried out the free port and free city idea 
thoroughly and this is what the Encyclopedia Ih-itaiiiiica .says: 
'In countries where custom duties are levied, if an extension 
of foreign trade is desired, special facilities must be granted 
for this purpose. In view of this a free zone sufficiently 
large for commercial purposes must be set aside. English 
colonial free ports, such as Hong Kong and Singa])ore, do 
not interfere with the regular home customs of India and 
China. These two free harbors have become great shipping 
ports and distributing centers. The policy which led to their 
establishment as free ports has greatly promoted British com- 
mercial interests." " 

I was fully convinced after visiting Singapore and Hong 



PANAMA CANAL ZONE AND REPUBLIC 163 

Kong during the past year, that we should make the splendid 
port of Manila a free port and city, or we can never expect 
to secure, develop and hold our share of the trade of the 
Orient. Secretary of State Bryan stated to me that he strongly 
favored this policy in the development of our colonies, and the 
Panama Canal Zone is our most important colony. 

This question is a paramount one in the development of 
our commercial relationship with South America and other 
countries; hesides. it will make the Panama Canal pay. If 
we do not act soon some other country owning one of the 
West India Islands, well located to trade with ships passing 
through the Canal, will take advantage of the situation. 
Already the Panama Republic intends to benefit from our 
investments in the Canal by creating a free city bordering on 
the Canal Zone. We should not stop short with the com]:)le- 
tion of the Canal, but continue the great enterprise to a more 
notable, as well as profitable, conclusion, by extending our 
commerce and trade, not only with South America, but with 
the entire world. I sincerely hope it may never be necessary 
to use the big Canal to pass our navy quickly from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, and z'icc zrrsa. in times of war. But if the 
necessity arises, without question we will find it "mighty 
handy." 

The F*anama Canal is the greatest industrial undertaking 
ever attempted and successfully carried to completion by any 
nation of the world, and we should all feel proud of our coun- 
try, and that we are citizens of the United States of North 
America. 



UNITED STATES 
COLONIES 

AND 

DEPENDENCIES 

By VV. D. BOYCE. 

Mr. Boyce, for his papers, personally visited all the Colonies 
of the United States, and wrote Travel Articles that were 
more popular, when printed in serial form, than his South 
American Stories. Possibly this was because they were about 
countries under our flag. He felt his work would not be 
complete unless he included the Dependencies of the United 
States. He returned to Cuba, after some years' absence, but 
did not have the time to visit the Dominican Republic or Haiti, 
l)ut had the work done for liim by competent employes. He 
does not seek to take more than the credit of carefully editing 
the copy and subject treated on these two Dependencies. The 
success attained in producing "Illustrated South America" led 
Rand, IMcNally & Co. to take the publication of the "United 
States Colonies and Dependencies," also. The first edition is 
ten thousand copies ; retail price $2.50. If it is as good a seller 
as "Illustrated South America" other editions will be printed. 



Four Separate Books Containing the Same Matter as 

"United States Colonies and Dependencies" are 

Printed by the Same Publishers, at $1.00 Each. 

"Alaska and Panama," One Volume. 

"Hawaii and Porto Rico," One Volume. 
"The Philippines," One Volume. 

"United States Dependencies," One Volume. 



ILLUSTRATED 
SOUTH AMERICA 

By 
W. D. BOYCE 

The "copy" for this book was originally printed in the "Chicago 
Satiu'diiy Blade,"' one of our four papers, as Travel Articles, by 
Mr. Boyce, on South America. Owing to requests from many peo- 
ple that it be printed in book form, ;t was issued by the oldest and 
best known publishers of historical books and maps in Chicago, 
Rand, McNally & Co., and in less than two years has reached its 
third edition. Price, $2.50. For sale by all book dealers, or Rand, 
McNally & Co., Chicago. 

PRESS COMMENTS. 

San Francisco Chronicle — The author has a natural bent 
toward the study of the origin of the various peoples of South 
America. 

Brooklyn Eagle — A good book it is, every page bearing the 
finger-prints of a keen and capable reporter. 

New York Mail — Best pictorial record of travel yet. 

Pittsburgh Post — It is a most valuable contribution to current 
literature. 

Atlanta Journal — In the 600-odd pages of this volume is a 
wealth of human as well as historical and practical interest. 

Cleveland Leader — He gave himself an "assignment" to "cover" 
that territory and he came back with the "story." 

Utica Daily Press — He wrote as he traveled while all the sights, 
facts and events were fresh in his mind. 

Editor and Publisher — In all this book of nearly 700 pages 
there is not a dreary page. 

Florida Times-Union — Written by an American business man 
who catches the salient point of view. 

Houston Chronicle — Full of valuable information and of com- 
mercial as well as literary interest. 

Kansas City Star — An exceedingly readable volume of some 
600 pages. 

Troy (N. Y.) Record — A good substitute for an actual trip 
through the little Republics of South America. 

News, Salt Lake City — Hardly a page of this volume is without 
illustration. 

San Francisco Call — Recommended for the exceptional full- 
ness and interest of its pictorial contents. 

Evening Star (Wash., D. C.) — A wonderfully interesting, his- 
torically accurate, splendidly pictured and narratively delightful 
book. 

South American (Caracas, Venezuela) — A truthful portrayal of 
first impressions. 

Herald — Buenos Aires (Argentina) — A timely, interesting and 
valuable treatise. 



91,581,000 CIRCIMTION 

W. D. BOYCE CO. 

(Established 1886) 

Daily and Weekly Newspaper and Periodical Publishers, 
500 North Dearborn Street, CHICAGO 

THE SATURDAY BLADE 

is twenty-seven years old and never missed an issue. It is a big 
newspaper, full of the big things that happen. Special attention is 
paid to news that continues from week to week, and new inven- 
tions and discoveries. At all times it 1ms an expedition in some 
f)art of the world, for ne^v and cnrions descriptive articles and 
photographs. The Saturday Blade is illustrated in colors. 

THE CHICAGO LEDGER 

is forty-two years old and has never missed an issue. It is a 
periodical with special articles and departments. The liction 
stories are all Avritten to order, nsually topical, and ^^iU\ a moral 
that helps to shape public opinion in favor of Justice, Kight and 
the A'obility of Labor. It is handsomely illustrated in colors. 

THE FARMING BUSINESS 

Successor to tha Weekly Inter-Ocean Farmer. 

This publication had its foundation in the subscription list 
(80,000 subscribers) to the Weekly Inter-Ocean Farmer, for forty- 
two years a prosperous weekly, reaching the people in the country 
for several hundred miles around Chicago. Knowing that there 
were many publications reaching the farmer and owners of farms 
that were telling the agriculturist how to do things he knew as 
much about as the editor — we believed the new and useful field 
was in publishing a farm paper with the slogan, "The Applicafon 
of Practical Business Principles to Agriculture," and our success 
was instantaneous, as we had found a free and unoccupied field. 

INDIANA DAILY TIMES, 
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., 

is owned by W. D. Boyce Co. It is a popuhxr Afternoon Indepen- 
dent Daily of over GO, 000 copies daily and rapidly growing. Cir- 
culation doubled in past two years. The motto the Daily Times 
lives up to is: "A square deal ai.d fair play for everybody." 

TOTAL ANNUAL CIRCULATION OF THE FOUR PUBLICATIONS 

Ninety-one Million Five Hundred and 
Eighty-one Thousand 



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